Can I Stand in Your Light?
by awesomeasusual
Summary: TiMER AU. Timers, devices implanted in to people's wrists that countdown until the day a person meets their soul mate, came out to a lovelorn public when Maka Albarn was a young girl. Excited to meet her soulmate, the One she is going to spend the rest of her life with, she obtains one as soon she turns of age. But after ten years with a blank Timer, Maka begins to lose hope.
1. Chapter 1

Maka Albarn was ten years old when the commercials started popping up. _A lifetime of happiness_, they touted. _One small device implanted on your wrist and the love of your life was certain to find you_. The technology was complicated; experts on the news spoke of hormones, body temperature, and space between heartbeats. But after the first year of the product's release, the statistics were clear: Timers resulted in longer-lasting relationships than previous methods, including Internet dating and arranged marriages.

When a politician named Lloyd Mort and a sex worker who went by the name Arachne met "zeroed out" (meaning, within twenty-four of when their Timers ran out, they made eye contact and their soul mate jingles rang) countrywide media went wild. Their courtship and subsequent marriage was covered by all major news sources, much to young Maka's confusion. What was so interesting about two people falling in love? The people on TV made it seem like it was the end of the world, or the beginning of a new one.

In spite of the media circus, Maka's mother told her that Timers were a trend, and the statistics were clearly fabricated. Love was not something a factory could churn out and sell on an installment plan.

But as each of Maka's friends came of age, they had Timers implanted. It was a guarantee, they echoed. What more could Maka want? The hesitation, the longing, the doubt would be gone with the flip of a switch. Even Liz Thompson, jaded skeptic extraordinaire, had run right out the day she turned 14 to get hers implanted, because her mother had run out on her and her younger sister Patti only a few weeks before.

"I want to know I'll have someone to love me," she whispered to Maka. They were curled up under a blanket fort in Maka's room, still adorned with the trappings an 11 year old found cool. Liz and Patti were visiting after having settled in with her new foster family, including a boy Maka's age, whose hair was turning white at a tender age. Liz stroked her sister's hair with her left hand, her right wrist still red and oozing from the quickie implantation, as Patti drooled on her lap. "Besides Pat."

Maka propped her chin in her hands and studied her friend's weary face in the dim light. Liz's right hand would twitch slightly every few seconds, as if the ticking time ran through her blood. She thought of her mother and father, of their tempestuous love, if she could even call it that.

"A guarantee would be nice," was all she could think to say to Liz.

"Yup," Liz said giddily. "Only two more days to go."

Maka raised her eyebrows in surprise. "That soon?"

Liz shrugs. "I'm in high school. That's old enough."

Maka wasn't so sure she agreed. She wanted to understand, but learned to shrug it off. The technology was still new, and younger people rarely got them. Besides that, romance and true love only came out of stories her father read to her at bedtime. Love was never perfect, no matter what television said. Maka looked at her mother and father who, despite the infidelity and distrust that shadowed their relationship, stayed together. Thirteen-year-old Maka admired her mother's strength in a difficult situation. She held her ground, no matter what excuses her father made.

Then her mother, in a fit of pique after a particularly rough fight with her father, got a Timer. If she and Maka's father were meant to be, the device would be blank.

Maka's mother came home, her face ashen, the edges of the bandages around her wrist stained red.

It lit up immediately, her mother said, and started counting down the days until she met her soulmate. She left the next day, her half of the closet clear and her drawers empty. Sometimes, when it was Maka's turn to do the laundry in the house, she would fill the bare spots where her mother's things used to be with her father's shirts and pants. He would move them out as soon as he noticed.

Spirit Albarn's wrist stayed bare.

Maka loved her father, but he was pretty much a sentimental idiot.

But Maka saw her her mother and father's divorce as a sign. If her strong, self-assured mother got the Timer, so would she.

She needed a guarantee. She needed safety.

By the time Maka entered high school, Timer implantation ceremonies were conducted daily by religious, government, and medical agencies. Maka and her best friend Tsubaki got their Timers implanted together. They went on Maka's fourteenth birthday; Tsubaki had waited two years so they could go together

They were both blank.

On their way home from the official Timer offices, they stared at their sore wrists.

"Our soul mates probably haven't gotten theirs yet," Tsubaki reassured, tall, sweet, confident. "They might be a little younger," she giggled.

Maka laughed with her friend, her chuckles strained and hollow.

Her high school's halls were constantly echoing with the twinkling sounds of zeroed out Timers and soul mate's making eye contact with each other, or showing off the ages they would be when they would meet their soul mate.

"I'll be thirty-two," Maka overheard someone say. "That's perfect because then I'll be finished with my doctorate, and two years in the Peace Corps. I wonder if my soul mate is in Columbia right now!"

Jealous flames would lick at Maka's heart. Her classmates would hide their words behind their hands but she could see the sympathy leak from their eyes. _A blank Timer, _they'd whisper. _They'll never know who their soul mate is. They'll be alone forever._

Maka hid her Timer under long sleeved, collared shirts. Not having a Timer was better than the shame of a blank Timer. At least she could explain not having a Timer with one excuse or another. Tsubaki, on the other hand, held her head high, and encouraged Maka to do the same.

"Our soul mates probably aren't ready yet. They'll come to us when they are. And we'll know."

"What if they never get Timers," Maka argued. "Then we'll never know."

Tsubaki stiffened, and shut her locker with a loud clang. "Everyone gets Timers eventually. And if we're really soul mates, they'll be like us. We got Timers. So will they. Be patient."

It was harder for Maka. Tsubaki's parents got Timers, and immediately zeroed out once they made eye contact. Tsubaki had proof that the Timers worked.

But as time wore on, Maka and Tsubaki began to get nervous. One by one, her friends' and family member's Timers light up, and as Maka grew older, the ghost of her mother's words haunted each corner of her mind.

_Love is not something you can make in a factory._

Ten years later and Timers were thinner, sleeker, and had a 99% success rate.

Maka, after ten years with a blank Timer, feared she was the 1%.

Maka carefully, quietly packed as much food as she could possibly stuff into her lunch bag. The girlish giggles coming from upstairs spurred her to go faster, and she leapt out the door with a bagel between her teeth as soon as she heard stumbling footsteps coming down the stairs to the kitchen.

Maka happily ignored her father's illicit affairs with Timered women, unless he brought them home in a drunken haze.

She ran all the way to work, her backpack bouncing against her back in time with her heartbeat. The desert sun wouldn't be up for another few hours, but sweat broke out along her hairline. The adrenaline pumping through her system pushed her all the way to Death City University, her second home. She raced up the steps, careful not to jostle the sensitive Timer on her wrist. It had been itching lately, and she'd half been tempted to see a doctor. She ignored it in favor of keeping her breathing steady, her focus entirely on her feet pounding the concrete steps up to the college.

At twenty-four years old, she was already a part-time professor in psychology. She credited her own hard work in high school and undergrad to her blank Timer; she worried about the more important things, and kept focus in the future.

Besides, the Professor with the Blank Timer was better than the Girl with Pigtails and a Blank Timer.

She showered in the gym and settled at her desk to check her email before class started.

Maka didn't bother glancing up as the stragglers from the previous class stared at her and began to whisper behind their hands.

Maybe being the Professor with the Blank Timer wasn't all that great. She gritted her teeth and flipped open her laptop. She tried not to look at the students as it booted up, all of the hideous, sympathetic looks plastered on their faces, their Timers glittering on their wrists.

But it was fine, because she and Tsubaki were going to have their Timers removed.

They had talked about it extensively the last couple of months, and the decision made sense to them both. What kind of soulmates didn't have their Timers yet? Either they were under the legal age, or they were older than the average. Maka and Tsubaki did not take either to be a viable option, soulmates or not. Besides, before Timers, people left love up to luck. Maka and Tsubaki would be fine.

She took a happy slurp from her gigantic coffee and clicked open her browser.

An email from her father (_delete_), another from Liz (_found another one for you: No Timer!_), and one from Tsubaki with no subject. Maka frowned as she opened it.

_Meet me at Death Bucks after your class,_ said the message. Maka looked at her phone, confirming that she did not miss any phone calls or text messages.

Maka typed in a quick confirmation reply, and shrugged to herself. Maybe Tsu needed a caffeine break before they took the big leap into Timer-lessness and her phone battery died, or something.

"Professor Albarn," said a male student as he approached her desk. He leaned forward on one hand, forcing Maka to reel backward, to save her personal space.

Maka dragged her gaze up from the many ringed fingers polluting her desk with prints, to say "Can I help you, Mr. Gere?"

He grinned, his innumerable facial piercing glinting in the fluorescent lights. "Call me Rico."

"I'd rather maintain my professionalism, Mr. Gere. As your _professor," _she enunciated. "I suggest you do the same."

Gere gave her an exaggerated salute. Maka quickly spread her worksheets around, occupying all the wooden surface of the desk. "Yes, ma'am." He leaned back down and planted his big hand on her paperwork, ignoring her indignant scowl.

"Has anyone told you that you need to lighten up, Prof?"

"Yes," Maka hissed. She heard it at least once a day from Liz, through several forms of media. "But that's none of your business. Class is going to start soon. Please have a seat."

She gathered up her handouts and tried to walk away, but he blocked her, wedging her between the side of her desk and the wall.

"Gimme a chance, Prof. I'll loosen you up real good."

"Ew," Maka replied, her nose wrinkled. She glanced at his wrist. Under the many bangles and braided threads, a thin, silvery screen peeked out, grayish numbers counting down slowly. "You have a Timer."

"So do you," he leered. He laughed at her blank face. "Ah, you're one of those girls who thinks I'm cheating on someone I haven't even met."

That, and she wanted him as far away from her as possible. She didn't answer, just glared. Instead of quivering under her tight-lipped stare, he tipped his head down closer to hers.

"There's nothing to lose. She ain't going anywhere." He waved his Timered arm in the air. His hand landed on her shoulder, his rings digging into her bones with the weight of his grip.

If a guy like Rico Gere had a soul mate, there had to be something seriously twisted with the system.

"Remove your hand from my shoulder before I remove it from the rest of your body."

"Don't be like that," he wheedled. "One night. It's not like your guy even bothered to get a Timer, he doesn't care- _ugh."_

Maka was grateful she remembered to pack her professional looking heels, because the flat bottom of her running sneakers would not have nearly the same effect on Gere's toes as her sharp, narrow heel did.

"I hope your soul mate likes trash," she said in a low voice. Other students began to file in. They barely gave Maka or Gere a glance; it was clear their morning coffee hadn't had the chance to kick in yet. "Because that's all she's going to get." Maka released Gere with a huff and ducked under his arm.

She kept her eyes low, focused on passing out that class's handouts, but she heard the door creak as Gere crept out.

She sighed in relief, letting out the breath she didn't know she was holding. Maka had 20 years of fight training, and was only pressed to demonstrate it a handful of times (usually with Liz, usually at the local college bars). But she doubted her professor reviews would come back to her positive if she handed one of her students their own spine during class.

At that thought, Maka shoved a stack of papers at a student and told him to hand them out. He started and jumped out of his seat, his eyes sharp with fear.

Maka slunk back to her desk, her fingertips rubbing her pounding temples.

She was finished with Timers, with men, with the entire institution. Men like Rico Gere, the ones with active Timers, "lived it up" while they could, jumping from woman to woman until the day they met their soul mate. Maka heard stories about the ones that continued sleeping around even after they met their "one", because the men knew their Timered soul mate would never leave them, reportedly under the notion that they were stuck with what they had.

That 1% haunted them.

As Maka queued up that day's presentation, she thought about her fourteen-year-old self, and how she used to imagine that couples were surrounded in a kind of pure white light. Their happy glow outshone the sun when they went outside.

Their lights were dimmer now, as if the Timers supernovaed a couple's happiness. There was heaviness with Timer-less couples, a dark uncertainty. Why was their love less than Timered couples? She thought of her parents, who's already crumbling marriage was brought to its knees by the Timer, and of Liz, who was going on nine years of wedded bliss.

Timers were supposed to make love and romance easier.

"Ah, professor?"

"What," Maka snapped, jolted out of her spiral.

"It's fifteen past," the student squeaked. "Should we begin class…?"

"R-right," Maka mumbled. "Take out your, uh, your textbooks and open to page 364."

The students turned their pages, and Maka was caught in the flashing lights of their wrists. Soft blues, greens, and pinks mocked her, their trickling numbers whispering, "_you'll never have this_._"_

Maka stomped to the podium, her extendable pointer dragging on the floor. Her students sat up in their desks, ruler straight.

"Pop quiz," she said, her pointer slapping the screen. "You have five minutes to answer ten questions."

The students stared at her in horror.

"_Go._"

It was a little cruel, granted, to start off the day with a lesson in human reactions under stress, but it made her feel a little bit better.

Maka collapsed in the seat across from Tsubaki, who took a shaky sip from her steaming tea.

"I had the worst morning," Maka babbled, pouring sugar into her coffee. She watched the stream of white flow into her cup; her nerves danced, anticipating the sweet sting of caffeine. "My dad brought home another random girl and he forgot to make her leave before I got up. _And _this kid in my class started to hit on me-I almost dislocated his face-"

Maka broke off as she examined her friend's face. A sheen of sweat coated Tsubaki's forehead, the tip of her nose was red, and her lips were pressed in a thin line.

Maka hadn't seen that face since the day Tsubaki got her Timer in the first place.

"What's wrong," Maka demanded.

Tsubaki thrust her wrist towards Maka, a thin plastic screen jutted out from the pale underside. Small numbers ticked down, flashing gently. _Two months, three days, fifteen hours, fifty-six minutes, eleven, ten, nine, eight seconds._

Maka's breakfast rose in her throat. "Tsu..."

"I'm sorry Maka. I know we promised but... it happened. My soul mate got a Timer."

"I… need coffee." She chugged her cup, so she could blame the tears that were forming in the corner of her eyes on her scalded tongue. She was breathless and nauseated by the time she finished, the hazy buzz of sugar and caffeine pushing away sadness and replacing it with a feeling of agitation.

"When I got this Timer, I thought it was going to tell me when my life was going to be whole," Tsubaki pleads. "We were both miserable when they turned out to be blank, and then stayed blank for so long."

"What about being whole without having a soul mate," Maka hissed. "We talked about it, Tsu, and we agreed. Free will. Having a choice. Not letting some piece of plastic control our lives."

"It's not controlling me. It's giving me a gift. He's going to make my life better, I know it."

"How do you know it's going to be a 'he'?" Maka groused.

Tsubaki gave Maka a pained look, which she ignored.

"You haven't even met him yet, how do you know he's not some old guy with snaggly teeth?"

Tsubaki grew quiet. "I'll love him anyway, because he's my soul mate. And this is all the proof I'll need." She gestured to the soft flashing light on her wrist. "I wanted to know that someone is out there for me to spend my life with, and here's the proof that I will. Please understand. I like having a guarantee. That's why we got the Timers in the first place. And now I have it."

"What about love, Tsu? Romance?" Maka asked. "Timers, it's all so controlled! Love for a fee, remember? There's no fun, no spontaneity."

"You don't know that, Maka," Tsubaki said gently. "You're angry right now-"

"Of course I'm angry," Maka crumpled her cup. "We had a deal. There are more important things in life than constantly worrying about Timers and soulmates. We were going to get our lives back, our independence."

"Who says I can't have the more important things with a Timer? With a soulmate? I can have it all, and I want to."

"There's no such thing as one true love."

"You're only saying that because you've given up!" Tsubaki's mouth snapped shut after the words left her, her lips tightened into thin lines.

Maka looked away from her friend, tears spilling down her cheeks. In that moment, Maka saw the line; the clear distinction between those with active Timers, and those without. Tsubaki's path was clear, she had someone waiting for her. Maka didn't.

"When your Timer starts counting down, you'll understand." Tsubaki stood and swung her bag over her shoulder, avoiding Maka's eyes. But she had the same sympathetic look that everyone in high school had, and in college, and out on the streets.

A blank Timer. How sad.

Maka's blood boiled in her veins.

Maka walked up to the door. She actually wrapped her hand around the doorknob this time, but still hopped away back towards her parked car.

The neon sign of the Timer implantation center was lit in the dark night, making the sidewalk glow in alternating rainbow colors. She supposed the effect was meant to be romantic; newly Timered people would walk out and enter their new world in a lilac haze.

Alternatively, a red glow could also hide any bloodstains from recently broken up couples with mismatched Timers.

Maka attempted to open the front door of the implantation center but balked again, spinning on her heel and stomping back to her car.

She stopped with her key in the lock. It was what she wanted, freedom from her Timer. She wanted the choice to fall in love with whomever she wanted, and not feel any guilt for choosing her own partner. Or partners. She was getting her Timer removed; she could do what she wanted! Maka stuffed her key into her purse and walked back to the door. She pulled it open and her heart dropped to her stomach. She let the door go as a quiet "Welcome to the rest of your life" from an Implantation Specialist reached her ears, and ran to her car, wrenched the door open and clambered inside. Maka stuffed the key into the ignition and the engine roared to life; static from the car and the ignition sparked at her wrist and shocked her.

She rubbed at the skin around her Timer irritably. She cursed her fourteen-year-old self, her romantic notions at that tender age, and the goddamn clunky Timer imbedded in her wrist for the last ten years.

She pulled the key from the ignition and laid her head against her steering wheel. The horn blare was not enough to stir her from her position; she wished the ground would open up and swallow her whole, car included, so she could at least drive around hell if she wanted.

Tsubaki's Timer activated. There was still hope. Maka's soul mate could still be out there, somewhere. Maybe he was agonizing about getting the Timer at that moment. He must have a reason for not having one yet. He probably had his life planned out, and was waiting for the right moment. What was he doing now, she wondered. A smile crept up on her face. Her mind spun a blurry image of him, his perfect teeth and dark hair.

She wanted to meet him.

Maka groaned and lifted her head from the steering wheel. The neon sign from the implantation center glowed yellow, casting a sickly shine on everything within a half-mile radius.

She didn't need to meet him. She was a successful woman, the owner of her own damn destiny. Fuck those Timers! She would love whomever she wanted, not someone who some scientist thought was best for her. Fuck those scientists.

Maka left her car, violently clicking the automatic lock on her key chain. She yanked the door to the facility open and marched in. The air-conditioning was on full blast and blew her hair and clothes back, disorientating her.

She blinked her bangs out of her face, and a tall person in a red, official looking shirt waved shyly at her.

"Welcome, y-young lover-" the employee stammered as Maka gagged "-what brings you here today?"

"I want it off," she said, and held her wrist out.

The employee's timid smile faltered. "What."

Maka squared her shoulders. "I want my Timer removed."

Skin paled under fading lavender hair. "An… extraction?"

They said it like she had asked them to skin a childhood pet. Maka gritted her teeth and said, "Yes. Now please."

It was way past time. She should have had it removed when she turned 16, and the Timer's cold glint kept her from enjoying her high school football star's tongue in her mouth. She should have had it removed during her sophomore year of college, when the overbearing silence on her wrist kept her from going to the spring formal with her intramural lacrosse co-captain. She should have had it removed when Liz sent her on her 15th blind date with yet another Timer-less man.

The employee edged away from her, like she carried something horrible and infectious, and gestured to a man behind a desk, whose serious expression was entirely contrary to the fake arrow bisecting his head. "Ah, S-stein? Could you help me, please? Please."

The Stein in question sighed and pushed his chair out from behind his desk. He didn't bother standing; he wheeled backwards towards them, until the wheels caught in the carpet and Stein tumbled to the ground. He lay spread-eagled on the heart-patterned rug, out of place in his stark white lab coat. He pushed his glasses up his nose and looked up at the panicking employee hovering by Maka. "Did you try and Timer yourself again, Chris? You can only do it once, remember, the other wrist doesn't work."

"Ah, no," Chris stammered, still staring at Maka. She felt self-conscious in her work clothes, and shrank into her collared shirt. "This lov- ah, _lady, _asked me to remove her Timer. I don't know what to do."

Maka frowned. "My name is Maka Albarn. Don't call me lady."

Stein peered at Maka interestedly, adjusting his ridiculous headband. "An extraction, eh?"

The self-conscious feeling increased, but this time it pissed Maka off. It was supposed to be a liberating moment and those two were ruining it.

"Just get it off," she said, shaking her wrist insistently.

Stein studied her for a moment, the solid gray eyes behind thick lenses piercing her. He nodded, more to himself than to anyone else, and said, "Take her to Room 4. I'll be there in a moment."

Chris lead Maka, stumbling, to room 4. Their shaky confusion annoyed her, and she was tempted to bump into them on purpose as she entered the room by herself. She sat on the cushy reclining chair, the small room more comfortable than a doctor's office, but with the same clinical coldness.

Maka took a deep breath, clearing her frazzled mind.

It was _right_. She traced the rectangle of metal and plastic that had run her life for the last ten years.

She remembered when she was fourteen, and almost couldn't get a Timer implanted; her wrist was too narrow for the smallest size Timer carried. She had begged the implantation specialist, though he warned her it might have adverse effects, like random electric shocks and possible infection. She mostly grew accustomed to getting shocked every time she started her car or used the microwave, but maybe the specialist was wrong about the infection. Maka had had one the entire time, infected by the insane notion that love could be scheduled according to an overly ambitious clock.

But Liz was happy, wasn't she? Isn't that why she was always trying to set Maka up with guys without Timers? _Process of elimination, _Liz would smirk, then shove a suspiciously candid photograph of a potential suitor under Maka's nose.

Tsubaki would be happy, too, in approximately six weeks. She'd have someone she would inevitably marry and be happy with and not spend the rest of her life wondering if it was the right choice.

Maka's gut hollowed out, leaving cold nothing in its wake.

She gave her pigtails a hard pull.

The door swung open and banged off the opposite wall, smacking the intruder on his way in. Stein plunked down in the stool beside her and grabbed her hand.

"I haven't seen this model in ages," he said as he examined Maka's wrist. He gripped the Timer between two fingers and pulled it experimentally.

"_Ah,_" Maka twisted in Stein's hold. "_Don't do that."_

"I hardly ever get to do extractions. Excuse me while I take the opportunity to experiment."

"No, thanks," Maka said, cradling her arm to her chest.

Stein sighed. "Fine." He dug around a drawer and snapped on white disposable gloves.

"The Timer Company apologizes for your dissatisfaction with their product," Stein droned. "As a courtesy, the Timer Company kindly reminds you that Timers are not re-implantable-" the leather chair squeaked under Maka's tight grip "-as the nerves are irreversibly damaged during the implantation process, their subsequent use by the Timer product, and the inaccurate results as produced from implantation in the non-dominant hand."

He dove into the same drawer and hefted out the Extractor. The tool was reminiscent of a security tag remover from a department store, only with wider, more threatening prongs.

Maka's eyes nearly popped out of their sockets.

"The Timer Company thanks you for your investment in Timer, and hopes you find true love even without the guarantee." Stein positioned the Extractor around Maka's Timer, his index finger poised over the lever. The tendons in his hand flexed as he began to squeeze-

"No, _stop._"

Maka rolled away from Stein, and off the recliner. She looked over the edge of the sofa like a feral animal. Stein held the Extractor and his hands up, mild confusion lighting his eyes.

"I can't," she said, calm despite her crouching.

"Evidently," Stein replied. He rolled back on his stool, the wheel creaking along the tile, and dropped the Extractor back in the drawer. He slid the drawer shut and Maka finally took in a breath. She crawled back into the recliner, and tried to look sane, though her skewed pigtails didn't do her any favors.

She fidgeted with the edge of her skirt. "I thought I could do it. I mean, it's been ten years. Maybe I just don't have a soulmate. Or maybe my soulmate doesn't want to stay with one person forever, or they don't even want to know who I am."

Stein concedes. "It's a commitment. It's not for everyone."

"You have one," Maka said accusingly. "You work _here,_ you have to have one."

"I used to have one," he pulled up his sleeve. Two dimples in his wrist revealed where it used to be, the double prongs digging into his skin. "The owners don't like it when I show people, but I'm the only one qualified to do removals in the tri-county area."

Maka grabbed his arm and stared at the pale rectangle where his Timer used to be. "Didn't like your soulmate?" she asked offhandedly.

"If I had met her, no doubt that I would like her very much. Decided I didn't care." He waved his left hand in her face, and she caught the silver gleam of a wedding band. "This meant more."

Maka felt a little horrified as she asked "What about your soulmate?"

Stein pulled a cigarette out of his coat pocket, stuck it in his mouth, and handed Maka a lighter. She lit it for him, and he offered one to Maka, but she waved him off, waiting impatiently for her answer.

Stuffing his lighter back in his pocket, Stein took a long drag, and said, "I'll never know. I don't care to. I like what I have."

"Does your wife have a Timer? Or your husband?"

Stein gave her a hard look. "She did have one, before we met. But then we had Shelley. It was moot for us."

Maka released Stein. "If I was your soul mate, I would hate you so much."

"Maybe at first," he admitted. "But then you would get to know me, and grow to love me, and inevitably accept me as your soul mate, because the Timer told you that you should, regardless of whether those things work or not. That's life's madness."

"No," Maka said, crossing her arms stubbornly over her chest.

"Yes," he replied flatly. "It's a self-fulfilling prophecy in that way. It's why the Timers have been so successful. " He took another drag. "On the other hand, Timers help us plan, but the choices we encounter dictate who we meet." He grinned around his cigarette, and patted her arm. "It's too late for us, sorry, Maka."

She grimaced and pulled away from him.

"I wanted mine removed because it's been blank for ten years."

"Lost hope?"

Maka shook her head. "I don't need it. I don't need a soulmate."

"Is that why you dove over the couch when I took out the Extractor?"

She slumped in her seat. "I don't know…"

Stein stubbed out his cigarette on the arm of the recliner. "To live your life with uncertainty is yet another commitment. Which ever you choose, we'll be here to assist you in your endeavors of love. That's the Timer Company's motto."

Maka saw that she was dismissed, so she dragged herself out of the Implantation center and into her car.

Back home, she curled up in her bed, and tried not to listen to the phantom ticking emanating from her wrist.

Weeks later, Timer still buried a quarter inch in her wrist, Maka woke to the piercing sound of her cell phone. She groped her nightstand, blind from sleep and the bright light that shone from her phone.

"Maka! It's today!" Tsubaki burst. There was a rhythmic creaking on Tsu's side, telling Maka that her friend was literally bouncing with excitement.

"What's today?" Maka asked, her fogged mind churning.

"My Timer ran out: I'm going to meet my soul mate today!"

Maka's blood ran cold. "Right," she said slowly. "How do you feel?"

"I'm so excited, I don't know what to do with my self."

"Sleep would be a good start, probably."

Tsubaki laughed. "I'm sorry, Maka, I didn't know what else to do but call my best friend."

Warmth soothed the jealous twinges in Maka's heart. It was not the time to feel sorry for herself and her blank Timer. "I'm so happy for you, Tsu, I really am. Where are you going today?"

"Nowhere special, to be honest." Tsubaki gasped. "But _we _are going to that new bar with Patti! I completely forgot."

"We could reschedule," Maka offered. "I'm sure Patti won't mind."

"No, no. I better keep to my schedule. Keep everything as normal as possible. Or _should _I do something special?"

Tsubaki sounded so terrified, but thrilled. She was going to meet whoever it was she was going to spend the rest of her life with. It was a momentous occasion, a milestone in Tsubaki's life. Maka just wished she could feel excitement for her, instead of this terrible, heavy envy.

"Oh my goodness," Tsubaki spat.

"What?!"

"What if I meet my soulmate at that disgusting bar?"

"Then you'll have a great story to tell the grandkids," said Maka, not trying to keep the irritation out of her voice.

"Maka," Tsubaki sighed.

"I'm sorry, I'm sorry," Maka rubbed her hand across her face. "I'm happy for you. But I'd be happier if it wasn't three o'clock in the morning."

"Ah, right. I'll let you go then."

"But you call me as soon as it happens," Maka says warningly.

Tsubaki laughed again, the sound too sweet and clear over the phone it made Maka nostalgic for their high school years, when their Timers were new and their blankness wasn't a big deal.

Now it felt like everything.

They hung up after Tsubaki made her promises, and Maka flopped sideways down on her bed. She wished there were someone to land on, someone to wake up and vent to, but there were only pillows to stuff her face into and scream. So she did.

After three hours of vacillating between periods of screaming into her night clothes and staring into the darkness of her room, Maka's day carried on as usual. She ran to work, taught a class, held office hours, and ate lunch. She checked her phone periodically, the screen as devoid of phone calls as her Timer was with steadily descending numbers.

She flinched. She had to stop making comparisons like that. It was only making her more miserable, if that was even possible.

Back in her shared office where three other part time professors lay claim to all of the good, non-wobbly desks, Maka stared at her pile of ungraded papers, their stark black and white surfaces taunting her.

Nothing in her life was simple. All she wanted was to be happy, damn it, with or without a soul mate.

And where was her joy? She liked teaching; she earned enough money to pay her bills and buy whatever little knick-knacks she could want while she applied to doctoral programs. But willful ignorance pissed her off, especially when it came to things that were clearly in the syllabus. She would not be able to teach for much longer, if she was honest with herself. She preferred research, something that she could plan and schedule and run at her own pace.

She loved her friends. They were usually busy with their significant others (like Liz with Wes) or doing things she wasn't sure were legal (like Patti and her parachuting-off-of-highly-secured-buildings thing.) Soon Tsubaki would be busy doing her thing with her soul mate.

Where did that leave her? Was she missing something?

Maka wracked her brain for all of the times she had witnessed a Timer going off. Were they happy when they found their soul mate? She wasn't there when her mother's Timer went off; in fact she hadn't seen her mother in quite some time. Maka had never seen her mother's soul mate either. She got a postcard after their unification ceremony, whatever that was, but it did not include a picture. She didn't know whether or not they were happy.

Liz met Wes two days after she got her Timer implanted. They met at some random library, a place Liz would never frequent voluntarily, but she apparently was looking for a book of sheet music for Patti. Maka hadn't met Wes until a couple of years ago, because he was frequently traveling and performing. She liked him well enough, and he was quite handsome, laughter always spilling from his dark brown eyes. Though, he teased her mercilessly about her blank Timer. And her pigtails. And her stature. And whatever else he sensed bothered her.

They didn't hang out much, but he threw amazing parties. Liz seemed pleased enough with him, hardly ever complained, except maybe after a glass or two of wine.

Maybe Tsu's soul mate would be like Wes.

Maka wrinkled her nose as she pulled her phone from her back pocket, checking the screen. There was a snapchat from Tsu, taken surreptitiously over the edge of an open book, of a handsome man with an open laptop. _Why can't he be my soulmate?_

Maka smiled. At least Tsubaki retained her sense of humor under stress. She couldn't imagine what Tsu's day must have been like, flinching at every noise, thinking it might be her Timer ringing for the last time. She could see Tsubaki avoiding eye contact with guys with tattoos and mohawks, politely smiling but being very terrified at one of them being her soul mate. Maka sniggered guiltily, imagining her best friend ducking and covering, trying and failing not to be seen for the statuesque beauty she was.

Maka's phone rang shrilly and she dropped it in surprise. It landed under her desk and she dove for it, frantically digging under the low cabinet.

What if it was Tsubaki calling to tell her that she already met her soul mate? How does a person respond to that kind of news? Do they shout and smile? Do they cry? _Should_ she cry, even in front of her office mates?

Maka snapped her ancient flip phone open, eyes watering from the dust and possibly from the potential emotional torment she was about to experience.

"_Tsubaki?_"

"Pshh. She would be so lucky."

Maka exhaled. "Liz."

"I got you a date," Liz barreled on. "He's a law student at DCU, about five-nine- normally I would have issues with him being as short as hell but you're like four feet tall anyway-"

"Hey, I am _not _that short," Maka sniffed. "The rest of you are just mutant giant freaks-"

"-he digs reading giant novels in public places _aaaaaand_ no Timer!"

"Liz," Maka said seriously. "Did you pick up _another _random guy?"

"Either that or Wes's connections. You know, he had a _brother-_"

"No," Maka objected immediately. "Way too inscesty."

"Fine then. And don't worry, I made it clear it was for you this time. I showed him your picture and everything, so he's interested."

Maka squeaked, "_Why do you have my picture?!"_

"Maka, I love you, but you're not taking action. Someone has to get you laid."

"Liz," Maka huffed. "This is not about getting laid…" Maka noticed that one of her office mates leaned in closer to where she was sitting, his ear pointed towards her, pretending to type on his computer. Maka growled at him, not caring that she sounded like an angry otter. Her two other office mates stifled their giggles, but they looked away quickly when Maka set her molten green gaze on them. "I'm trying to find my soul mate. Or at least I was."

There was a loud sound over the phone, like Liz had dropped something and it landed hard on the floor.

"You ok-?"

"You didn't have your Timer removed,did you?" She demanded.

Maka rested her head in her free hand. "I went to the implantation center last week but I couldn't do it."

"Oh, thank fuck, Maka, don't scare me like that."

"What's the point, Liz? My Timer has been blank forever."

"So you just give up? That's unlike you. What's really going on?"

Maka groaned and let herself melt to the floor, ignoring the panicked looks from her office mates. "How are Timers even a guarantee?" she murmured. "Hormones and heart palpitations. Is that really it?

"Well, if you want to get technical."

Maka wanted to wail. "Then what's the point?"

"Because it's all the stuff that gets you there that matters," Liz soothed. "The handholding and the flirting, making each other breakfast. Laughing together. Fucking. If you break it down, it's all chemical reactions. But it's about the big picture, Maka, and having someone who makes your brain fire chemicals off by your side, and wanting to keep them for the rest of your life."

"That is… interesting," Maka mused. Poetry was not Liz's strong suit. She checked the time on her phone. "I'm getting worried. Tsu's Timer hasn't even gone off yet and it's getting late."

"Oh, it's totally going to go off at the club," Liz said confidently.

"Why would Tsu meet her soul mate tonight? Guys who go to that kind of club aren't her thing. Tattoos petrify her."

"Because Timers love irony! I met Wes at the _library, _for the love of fuck."

Maka winced. "Ah, Liz, not so loud."

"Why? Are you with the office drones? Those assholes- _Tell them they can fuck themselves with their shiny mechanical pencils."_

Maka had to hold her phone away from her ear while Liz spouted abuse. She noticed her phone flashing, there was someone calling-

_Tsubaki._

"Gotta go," Maka ended the call with Liz hurriedly, and answered Tsubaki.

"Tsu," Maka breathed.

"I did it. I met him," Tsubaki said, her voice cracking over the line.

"I met my soul mate."

Maka spotted Tsubaki and snatched her ID from the bouncer before she ducked under a huge man's meaty arm and stomped across the sticky black floor.

Perched on her barstool, Tsubaki's leg bounced, either to the beat of the music or to the beat of her own racing heart.

Maka formed no preamble. "_Here?"_ she asked incredulously.

"Here," she confirmed with a weak smile.

"How?" The thumping music and shock reduced Maka to cave-man-like monosyllabic communication. "How did you even meet him?" she shouted over the music, if she could call it that.

"Here! About twenty minutes ago," Tsubaki grimaced as the music swelled again. "Bathroom. Drunk."

"Drunk," Maka gaped. The music echoing from the overhanging speaker stopped short, though Maka's ears kept ringing.

"He's better now," Tsubaki explained hurriedly. "I helped him clean up. He drinks when he's nervous, that's all."

"Wow, what a guy."

"Maka…"

"Fine. Tell me everything, from the beginning," she insisted.

"I got here four hours ago because I thought Patti said we'd meet at four o'clock, and I walked in on the bands' rehearsal. They were playing, so I thought I'd stick around, enjoy the music, and maybe save us a table.

"For four hours?"

"I didn't have anything else to do, ok? And I thought I would miss him if I stayed home and watched television."

_It's a self-fulfilling prophecy, _a voice that sounded too much like Stein's whispered from the back of her head.

"I've learned how to mix a couple of drinks from the bartender, too," Tsubaki continued. To Maka's confused face she said, "One of the band members kept ordering them and the bartender looked so swamped, so I helped him out."

Maka shook her head. "Only you, Tsu."

"I wasn't doing anything," Tsubaki blushed. "I was just sitting there so I helped pour some shots-"

"Just keep going."

"Ah, ok. I took shots up to the stage and dropped them off for the band, and the guitarist was talking about how their drummer had been in the bathroom for an awful long time-"

"Let me guess," Maka said wryly. "You offered to help."

"Well, yes. I went to the bathrooms and knocked, but I heard retching so I opened the door. He was hunched over the toilet when I walked in, so I tapped him on the shoulder and asked if he was alright." Tsubaki looked at her hands. "In hindsight, that was probably a stupid question."

"Then what?" Maka prompted, eager to clarify the mess that she was imagining in her head.

"He looked at me, and our Timers went off. Maka, he had the most beautiful eyes."

"Yes, I imagine red eyes fresh from vomiting would be very romantic."

"Maka, he was really so sweet. He tried to stand up and hug me, but he couldn't and kind of ended up tackling me. He apologized right away. So I helped him up and we introduced ourselves. He's back stage right now. He says he's going to write a song for me," Tsubaki grinned without a trace of irony.

Maka was saved from replying by dimming lights, signaling to the crowd.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to Club 42," the cornrowed announcer called. He smiled at the crowd and Maka sat up a little straighter. She stood on her toes and squinted at his wrist, but she was too far away to see whether he had a Timer.

Tsubaki gave her a side-glance and nudged her. "Kilik Rung. He's the band's manager. Married, father of twins. I checked for you."

Maka dropped back on her heels and scowled. All the attractive ones already had Timers. If they didn't, there was no guarantee, no security. If they had Timers, but were willing to go out with her, it made Maka feel like she was doing something wrong. Beyond that, if they were willing to date her with a ticking Timer, she didn't want to date that type of person anyway.

"Please welcome to the stage," the handsome manager continued. "Death Weapon Meister Academy!"

"What kind of band name is that?" Maka snipped.

With a grand gesture Kilik summoned the band to the stage as the crowd cheered, rising to their feet and approaching the stage.

One voice rose above the crowd's. The band's drummer cartwheeled across the stage, black converse narrowly missing his band mates' heads. They glared at him but looked resigned, much like a parent would gaze at a child clowning around at a funeral. The drummer finally landed in his seat and began spinning his drumsticks between his fingers, his foot pumping a fog machine. The heavy, artificial smoke poured into the audience, making them gag and cough. His bright eyes searched the audience feverishly, coming to a halt on Tsubaki. His cheeks pinked as he waved, his hand blurring from the speed. To Maka's surprise, Tsubaki returned his greeting with a shy little wave.

"_That's _your soul mate?" Maka asked incredulously.

Tsubaki nodded, her smile threatening to break her porcelain face. "Isn't he great?"

Maka shook her head violently, but it was no to avail. Tsubaki's eyes were glued to the drummer; his sticks flying erratically and his blue hair sticking up in directions Maka didn't know existed.

He was truly unlike anyone Tsubaki ever even glanced at. When she dated, before she got her Timer at 16, Tsubaki went out with boys who were clean cut and athletic. While the drummer had arms that could probably crush Maka before she could blink twice, he was anything but clean cut; he had tattoos inked down both arms, the most prominent being a scar-like five-pointed star.

Tsubaki watched Maka evaluating her soulmate, with her bottom lip between her teeth, as the band set up on stage. "I know he's not my usual type," she admitted. "But the Timer can't be wrong."

"He's just so-" Maka's thought was interrupted by loud crashing on stage. The drummer had started doing back flips to the chagrin of his friends, and managed to land on his drum kit. Tsubaki got to her feet, anxiously peering over the heads of the crowd at Black Star. A thumbs up appeared over the lip of an overturned bass drum, and Tsubaki sighed in relief.

"I've really only spoken to him once, so I don't really know how he is," Tsubaki said, her focus back on Maka, impaling her with icy violet eyes. "But I'm choosing to have faith in him."

Tsubaki turned away from her, the set of her face determined. But her grim expression gave way to surprise. "Oh, there's Patti!"

Sure enough, the young Thompson sister strutted up to the microphone, her infectious grin drew up the corner of Maka's own mouth.

"Hi," Patti said to the crowd. She nodded to the band mates behind her, and stared at Tsubaki's soulmate expectantly. He was looking past her, into the crowd, making a show of tossing his drumsticks into the air and catching them. Patti yanked off her shoe and chucked it at him, hitting him square in the face. Maka felt Tsubaki flinch beside her, and felt marginally guilty about the glee in her chest.

He rubbed his face and tapped his drumsticks together three times, and started the band's opening song.

"What's his name?" Maka shouted over the music.

"Black Star," Tsubaki shouted back, her eyes glued to her newfound soulmate.

"No, seriously. What's his name?"

Tsubaki's clapping slowed. "It would have to be a stage name, huh?"

Maka snorted. What a wonderful start to the relationship. She watched Black Star, alternating between baffled and disgusted as he banged on his "instrument."

How were he and Tsubaki going to work out? Maka supposed they had to; the Timer had paired them as soul mates. Knowing Tsubaki, Maka was sure her best friend would make her relationship work, whether or not she had to force the decision.

They were just so different! Tsubaki worked at a bank, she was buttoned down and neat, always polite and patient. That douchebag on stage was anything but. His hair was _blue._

Liz was going to flip her shit, if she wasn't too busy planning Tsu's wedding to that idiot.

She'd have to mention to Liz that the wedding would now have to include more leather clothing than the usual. Maka stifled her snickering and the twinge of guilt that crept into her throat. She wanted to give him the benefit of the doubt, but how could she? Maka herself was barely deserving of Tsubaki's friendship; she couldn't see how the drummer of some band was deserving of Tsubaki's unconditional love.

Maka watched Patti, so at home on the stage. Patti sang, one sneaker still on her foot, her Timer-less wrists twisting and shaking a tambourine in the air. From the time her older sister Liz got her Timer, Patti refused to even consider implantation. She purposefully snuck out of the house on her fourteenth birthday because she knew her sister was planning on surprising her with an implantation ceremony.

"No one can tell me what to do or who to love," Patti told Maka as she slipped into her window in the middle of the night. "Not even Sissy."

Maka had self-consciously hidden her freshly Timered wrist behind her back.

Unobservant as ever, Patti had continued, saying "It's just a piece of plastic. It doesn't know me. Can you hand me my giraffe?"

"Don't you like Wes?" Maka asked. "The Timer matched him and Liz, and they're happy."

"Sissy has Wes, and she can keep him. I have myself, it's all I need," Patti said simply, holding her hand out impatiently for her stuffed animal.

Maka obliged but her friend's words spun a dirge in her head along with her mother's departure.

The song ended, and Maka was left with a lungful of fake fog and a heaving chest.

Maka clapped along with the audience as the band bowed and left the stage.

Tsubaki bounced on her toes, electricity in her applause. "He's so good," she breathed.

Maka fought her gag reflex. "I need a drink," she declared, turning on her heel. She weaved her way through the crowd, Tsubaki trailing after her. Maka ordered something sharp and bitter, and swallowed it without much thought. Tsubaki opted for something sweet, with chocolate, and she savored each sip.

Maka could never tolerate anything sweet.

"I'm leaving," Maka announced.

Tsubaki choked on her sugar laced martini. "You can't! Black Star is going to meet me here any minute."

"You need time alone with your soul mate," Maka said, plastering a smile on her lips.

Tsubaki nodded, and smiled gratefully. "You're right!" She was so sincere, so good.

"I hope he's good, too" Maka said, alcohol blurring her. Maka gave her friend a quick hug. She turned on her heel, and left the club, the din fading behind her, leaving Maka in the solitude of silence.

Maka uncrossed and crossed her legs, the burning between her legs increasing. She'd been sitting in her itchy green dress, heavy earrings, and too high heels for the last twenty minutes while she downed a couple of glasses of wine. Her date was late and she had to pee.

Really. Bad.

Her heel hung off her toe as her leg jiggled, her nails dug into the skin of her forearms, crossed over her chest.

The waitress kept eyeing her table. She already turned away her offer to let her order ahead of her date. Twice.

Maka checked her phone again. She found it mercilessly blank, the generic background picture of blue bubbles stark in the dim light of the restaurant.

Liz's background was of her and Wes, hugging and clutching melting ice cream cones.

Maka snapped her phone shut.

"Hey, I'm sorry." Maka glanced up in time to see a casually dressed man plop into the velvet-covered seat in front of her, his round glasses slipped down his nose as he scrubbed his oddly shaped sideburns, dripping with sweat. "My friend and I were talking about the relationship between lightning strikes and surface damage, and I had to finish the conversation." He wound his tie around his neck, and knotted it.

Maka smiled stiffly. "Ox, right? You're here now, it's fine." She handed him a menu, while hers remained closed. She'd known what she had wanted for the last fifteen minutes.

"So Liz tells me you're a professor?"

"Part-time. Yes," Maka replied. "I like it-"

"Are you sure?" He asked, his nose buried in the menu. "It must be unreliable work, dependent on enrollment. You should find a different job."

"I enjoy what I do very much," Maka said, leaning back in her seat, fists clenching. "Pay is important, but it's not the only thing. Don't you enjoy your job? You're a researcher, right?"

"Yes," Ox nodded. "With Death City Medical Corps. Researching is tedious work, but the pay is excellent. Honestly, I wouldn't do it if it wasn't for the paycheck."

"I see," Maka said uncomfortably. "Do you have any hobbies, then?"

"I spend most of my time in the lab. But I do love watching _String Theory_! Have you seen it?"

"No," Maka admitted. "I've heard that show treats the female characters terribly."

"Well, it's about men in science, so the women don't matter much."

"Aren't two of the women scientists, too?" she pointed out.

"Yes, yes," Ox said impatiently. "But the show is focused on the men. It's hilarious; they get everything wrong!" He threw his head back and laughed, his hand clutching his chest, and drew startled looks from their fellow patrons. Maka ducked slightly to avoid their gazes, her cheeks heating up.

"I think it's more to entertain than to inform," Maka mumbled.

A waitress swept over to them, brushing her bangs out of her face with her notebook. "Phew," she said. "Busy night. Sorry to keep you waiting." She winked at Maka, who grinned back.

"Give me the pork chops in truffle oil," Ox said, interrupting the exchange. "And a bottle of red." He waggled his eyebrows at Maka obnoxiously. "A salad for the lady, perhaps?"

Maka snapped her menu shut and handed it to the waitress, looking Ox dead in the eye. "Steak. Medium rare, please."

"Okaaaaaaay," mused the waitress. "Be right back."

"How unprofessional," snipped Ox. "Pink hair. She should be fired for that."

"I didn't notice."

"You wouldn't, I suppose. You must be used to working with delinquents like her, in community college."

Maka cleared her throat. "The students I have are very hardworking. Most of them," she amended. "I teach a couple of core general education psychology classes-"

"That's a common major. Not many job opportunities. Poor chumps should have gone into an actual science."

Maka grit her teeth together.

"Psychology has helped enlighten people to different ways of thinking," she said defensively. "It's helped people deal with personal crises and mental illnesses-"

"_Mental illness,_" Ox snorted. "More like excuses to be lazy. Those people need to suck it up, get jobs, and actually contribute to society."

Maka suppressed the bile surging in her throat.

"Mental illnesses are a serious issue. Many people suffer from them, and they have no control over it. They need to be supported, not judged!"

"You talk a lot," Ox mused. "Do you usually talk this much?"

Maka flushed and her fingers twitched towards the paperback stashed in her purse. Ox was saved from a whack to the forehead as the waitress approached with a tray laden with food.

"Took long enough," he said to the waitress coldly. The waitress dropped the plate in front of Ox with a clatter, spilling the soup.

Maka smiled apologetically at the fuming waitress. She made a mental note to tip, and tip big. If she even made it through the night. As she left, Maka hissed, "You don't have to be so rude."

Ox shrugged dispassionately. "I am paying good money for service with a smile. It's not my fault she has a shitty job. She probably dropped out of high school too-"

"You can't possibly know that," she said, slamming her hand on the table. "I'd like to see you do this job, deal with people like you all day. See how long you smile." Maka stood, her purse under her arm and marched away from the table. She paused a few feet out before turning on her heel and returning to the table for her plate. "I've been wanting to try the steak here forever," she snapped, and left Ox again, balancing her meal in one hand.

Hunched outside with a bottle of water and a disposable plastic knife and fork, courtesy of the sympathetic kitchen staff, Maka chewed her steak, but couldn't taste it.

She couldn't remember the last time she had a nice date. The Timers had always played a part in them in one way or another. If her date had a Timer, it was always ticking down until the day they met their soul mate, and inevitably left her.

_Like your mother, _a tiny voice said in the back of her head. _Your mother, Liz, and now Tsubaki. Their time is ticking to their future, and yours never started._

Maka squeezed her eyes shut and chewed harder.

If her dates didn't have a Timer, she had to question why they were unwilling to get one. Was the idea of commitment too much for their fragile male minds? She would berate them with her questions, unwilling to relent until they gave her a sound reason, preferably with evidence that could be found in academic journals.

She actually convinced a few of her dates to get one, sometimes after a few months of dating. Their Timers began ticking as soon as the prongs dug into their skin. She sat by them as they were enveloped in joy, in their destiny, their soul mates in calculable distances.

Her teeth ground the heaviness in her mouth, willing it to bits and pieces, just manageable enough for her to swallow.

This was all Liz's fault. What had she been thinking when she gave a guy named _Ox_ her number? They had absolutely nothing in common. He was crass and rude and utterly cruel.

Did Liz know her at all? What kind of friend tried to hook her up with an idiot? She was probably too busy glowing from all of the true love she was wrapped up in. Was Liz so desperate for her? Would Tsubaki try and do the same? Would she stalk Timer-less men for her, shove her picture under their noses, beg them to date her?

She could imagine her friends gathered around together, huddled in a corner, plotting on how to get Maka a soulmate.

She was so tired of it.

Love did shitty things to people; including making other people do stupid things, like put themselves out there.

Maka stabbed her fork into what was left of her food and tossed it into the dumpster.

"Hey," called a voice from out of the dark. The waitress with pink hair stood in the dim alley, leaning against the brick wall, a cigarette burning between her fingers.

"Did you eat the soup?" She asked, blowing smoke through pursed lips.

"N-no?"

The waitress dropped her cigarette to the floor, stomping it out with a black boot. "Good."


	2. Chapter 2

Part 2

"Tsubaki," Maka said, gaping at the sparkling neon pink light illuminating the dimming parking lot.

"Mm?" Tsubaki replied as she dug through her purse for her I.D. Purple smudged the underside of her eyes, made darker by what appeared to be mascara.

"Why are we at a strip club?"

Poorly censored posters of half-naked women plastered the windows of the crumbling building, women's shouts and hoots and the thick bass pumped through the open door, shaking Maka's bones. Every time the bouncer lifts the red, velvet rope and let small groups of giggling, blushing women in, she caught glimpses of skin. A lot if it.

"It's ladies night," Tsubaki said, as if she were remarking on the weather.

"But why are we here, _today, right now? _It's a Tuesday," Maka added, horrified.

Liz and Patti laughed, already clutching their I.D.s in their hands. They were dressed in matching glittery cowboy get ups, complete with pink ten gallon hats and, in the right light, caused twin glares in Maka's eyes.

"Oh," Tsu said, a glint in her reddened eyes. "Because… this is my bachelorette party!"

"What."

"Black Star and I are getting married tomorrow at the dinner party!"

Liz and Patti exploded into jumping and excited giggles. They hugged Tsubaki tightly, sandwiching the teary woman between them.

Maka gasped, and held a hand to her mouth. "But… you just met, like, a month ago, Tsubaki. You _can't_ get married."

"Shut up, she can do what she wants," Liz said, excitement brewing in her bright eyes. "Do you have a dress? Flowers? Do you think the gift shop has cute lingerie for the wedding night?"

"Uh, kind of, I have a garden, and no, thank you."

"Don't encourage her," Maka said shrilly. Her friends stared at her, their jaws grazing the pavement.

Liz let go of her sister and Tsubaki, and stepped towards Maka, her pink boot crushing fallen leaves.

"Don't ruin this, Maka," Liz said firmly. "You're worried, but you don't have to be. The Timer doesn't lie. We are going to get drunk, feel up random guys, and then get this chick hitched tomorrow!" Liz wrapped her arm around Tsubaki's shoulder and led her into the club with Patti skipping after them, singing a childhood song, but with more obscene lyrics.

Maka flashed the bouncer her I.D., and slumped after her friends. The dimly lit room was flush with bodies in various states of dress. The music was stronger inside; it shook her body, making her steps uneasy as she weaved through the crowd. She stumbled into a tall man, reaching out as she tripped over her own toes. Her hand made contact with a thick, oiled chest.

"Hey, honey," the stripper whispered into her ear. "Lookin' for a dance?" He flexed his pec muscles under her hands and Maka gagged. She pushed away from him, wandering into the crowd again, and tried to take a calming breath but sucked in a lungful of cigar smoke. She coughed her way to where Liz, Patti, and Tsubaki were sitting, and plopped down next to Tsubaki, trying to avoid eye contact with anyone in a thong.

Maka's eyes watered as she snatched up the one of the drinks a waiter dressed in tight, gold colored shorts placed on the low table in front of them, and quickly downed it. The sharp alcohol burned her throat but slowed her churning head until one thought stood out.

_Married._

Maka narrowed her eyes at Tsubaki, the word repeating in her head like a tattoo.

"Maka, I know that look. Please, just be happy for me. I love him. He's my soulmate. I don't need to know anything else."

"I wasn't going to say anything," she said stubbornly. Tsubaki raised her eyebrows at her, and Maka relented.

"At least tell me more about him," Maka pleaded.

Tsubaki sighed around the lip of her martini glass. "Ok. His name is Blake Barrett, but he prefers Black Star."

Maka wrinkles her nose. "Um. I'm going to call him Blake."

"Call him Black Star," Tsubaki said sharply.

Maka was taken aback. "Tsu…"

Her hurt must have been evident, because Tsubaki sighed, harsh and tired. "It's been a long day. He's… not at all what he seems."

"I don't understand," Liz said. "He's not a ball of blue, misplaced masculinity?"

Patti put her hand over Liz's. "Sis, sh. Sh."

Maka nodded to herself, remembering that Patti was Black Star's band mate.

"It's not my business to say," Tsubaki continued. "You'll get to know him after the wedding."

Maka twisted the end of her pigtail around her finger. "But why tomorrow, Tsu? You have the rest of your life."

"Exactly! So why not now? He's my soul mate," Tsubaki reminded her gently, slipping a dollar into a stripper's thong. "You'll have to meet him, and I'd rather you do it sooner than later."

"But… _tomorrow_? Don't you want to get to know him first?"

"What for?" said Liz. "Wes and I would have gotten married the day we met, but I had to wait until I turned eighteen."

"What if he snores?" asked Maka desperately.

"He doesn't," Tsubaki said, staring determinedly at the stripper gyrating on stage.

Maka sat straight up in her chair. "How do you know?"

Tsubaki stared at her from under her eyelashes, waiting for it to sink in.

Maka's face felt engulfed in flames, and she sank into her plush chair as Liz and Patti whistled.

"You go, Tsu!"

"Tell me when to stop," Patti said, holding her hands together and slowly pulling them apart.

"You met him less than a month ago," Maka muttered.

"Soulmate," Patti reminded, singsong, waving over glistening man with a cowboy hat and cow skin chaps.

"Fine," she said grudgingly. "And he's ok with your impromptu bachelorette party?"

"Why wouldn't he be? He's at his Bachelor party. I think he and his friends went to 42 Tits."

"A different strip club?" Maka said, scandalized. "How many are there around here?"

"So innocent," Patti said solemnly, as the stripper grinded on her lap.

"I remember my Bachelorette party," Liz said, her eyes a little misty. "Wessy and I went to Death's Girl. It was ladies' night there, too."

"And Wes enjoyed that?"

Patti snorted, and slapped the stripper on his ass. He skipped away, a twenty-dollar bill hanging out of his tool belt.

"Like Wes explained: Sometimes you wanna suck dick, sometimes you wanna lick pussy," Liz shrugged. "It's just a thing."

"You know what you need, Maka?" interrupted Liz. "You need a another drink and a half naked man to grope." She whipped twenty dollars out of her bra and waved it in the air. Like heavily muscled flies, the strippers flocked to her, grinning broadly. Liz dropped the bill in Maka's lap and a blonde stripper snatched it up, stuffing it into the front of his thong.

"My name is Hiro," he slurred. So close, he stank of vodka and sweat. "Let me be your hero tonight, sweetheart." He placed his foot on the armrest of her chair, swiveling his hips in her direction. Maka sank down in her chair, putting as much distance between her and Hiro's crotch as she possibly could.

A loud trilling made Maka jump, her head bumping into his bicep.

"I gotta get that," she squeaked. She slipped out, sliding under his open legs. She ran to the back of strip club and ducked into the long hallway, leaning against the wall outside of the ladies' room, grappling with her phone.

It was blank.

She stared at it, confused as a neon green light flashed softly as the beeping changed to a mechanical-sounding harp beneath the sleeve of her blouse. It trilled from her wrist as Maka slowly pulled her sleeve away.

Her Timer pulsed softly, the number ticking downwards.

_2 hours, fifty-seven minutes, 47, 46, 45 seconds…_

Maka rushed to the bathroom, pushing past several drunken patrons and strippers, and emptied the contents of her stomach into the toilet.

"Maka," Patti call, banging on the bathroom door. "Come out! It's not a big deal. It's just telling you you're going to meet the person you're going to spend the rest of your life within twenty-four hours."

"Pat," she heard Liz hiss. "That's not helping."

Maka curled up in a tighter ball, clutching her knees to her chest, the offending ticking on her wrist counting down the hours to her doom. Or her destiny. She wasn't sure, and she really didn't want to know anymore. She scraped her wrist along the blue tile, a little harder with each pass. The clacking echoed off the walls, thickly layered with graffiti and stickers.

"What is she doing?" Liz asked loudly. "Maka, what are you doing?"

"Ma'am, we're going to need your friend to vacate the restroom. It's against our house rules for patrons to barricade themselves inside."

"Maka," Tsubaki's soft whisper came out from under the door. "Please come out. Let us talk to you."

"No."

There was a shuffling outside of the door, and Liz's voice came stronger. "You have to come out, this is what you have been waiting for since you were fourteen. Don't hide from true love, Maka. It's not supposed to be scary! It's going to complete your life."

"My life is fine!" Maka screeched.

It was fine. She had a good income, friends, and her health. That was enough.

Right?

Maka pressed her closed eyes to her knees until the black showed darker black spots.

"Lets go get pancakes," Patti piped. "You love pancakes!"

Maka lifted her head.

"And I promise to make Liz and Tsu stop talking about your Tim- ah, the _thing _on your wrist. Ok?"

Maka stood and brushed the dirt from her dress, trying not to imagine the millions of bacteria clinging to the material, and slid the heavy, metal trashcan from blocking the door. She opened it, her friend's relieved faces outshining the strip club manager's angry red one.

"Ok."

After dropping Liz off ("Gotta go comfort Wes"- they didn't ask what for) Maka, Tsubaki, and Patti made their way to Death's Diner, where Maka immediately ordered the biggest, most disgustingly sweet pancake-chocolate syrup- peanut butter concoction on the menu. They waited patiently for their meals as Maka watched the dwindling numbers on her wrist, the gin from the strip club threatening to make a return trip up her esophagus.

_Why did the damn thing have to turn on_ now? she thought, stabbing her pancakes with her fork. Her soulmate chose an incredibly shitty time to care about her. Who got their Timer at nearly midnight? What was he doing out so late? Sure, she was at a strip club a few minutes before, but what excuse did he have?

And who was he with? At midnight? On a weekday? How could she trust, let alone _love_, a man who was out at nearly midnight on a _Tuesday? _

She thought of her mother and her Timer. Maka's mother had told her that she loved her father, that he was her soul mate, not matter what. But then the Timer ruined everything.

Her mother left the comfort of her home, her young daughter, and a handsome husband. What more could she have possibly wanted? It hadn't been perfect, but why hadn't it been enough?

Why wasn't Maka's life, like this, enough?

Maka jumped out of her diner seat as her Timer trilled again, for the penultimate time. The next time it sang, the final time, would be when she made eye contact with her soul mate.

She would be stuck. With the same man. Forever.

"Ahhh," Patti acknowledged. "There it is. Ball and chain."

"Patti," Tsubaki said scoldingly.

Patti ignored her. "I'm calling Kid, he'll know what to do."

Tsubaki watched, exasperated, as Patti dug through her pockets for her cell phone as Maka stared at her wrist in horror and condemnation. "Tsu…. Get it off."

"Maka," Tsubaki said, putting her fork down.

"_Get it off._" Maka seized her friend's fork and began to dig at the skin surrounding the timer.

"No, Maka- _stop._"Tsubaki gripped the utensil, trying to take it away, but Maka held fast, hyperventilating as her Timer's cheery tune faded into quiet.

_It should have stayed quiet_, Maka thought as she attempted to drive Tsubaki away with her fork. _It should have never gone off, this is ridiculous soul mates are a joke, a sick joke. I don't have a soul mate, I don't get a happy ending. _

"Hey, Kiddo. Maka's freakin' out," Patti muttered into her phone. She paused for a moment, before she said "Tsu's trying to stop her from stabbing herself."

Maka vaguely heard Kid shouting at his foster sister as she wrestled with Tsubaki, the patrons around the little diner turned their heads to stare at the scene. Tsubaki managed to distract Maka with a kick to the shins and ripped the utensil from her grasp.

"You're panicking, that's ok," said Tsubaki, stashing the fork in her purse before quickly snatching up Maka's knife as well. Maka glowered at her. "You're panicking," she continued. "But this is a good thing! It's what you've wanted for so long. It happened to me, and it's happening to you now!" Tsubaki clasped Maka's hands in hers. "It's your happiness, Maka. It's finally here for you."

Maka withdrew her hands. "I have my happiness already. This," she said, waving her wrist, "Was a teenage mistake. Whoever this will lead me to won't complete my life- my life is already complete!"

"Of course it is," Tsubaki said soothingly. "But don't you want someone to share it with?"

"No," Maka said, crossing her arms stubbornly.

"Well. You're going to get him," Patti said with a bright smile. Maka let herself fall sideways onto the booth, curling up with her wrist tight against her chest.

"Is this a bad time to ask you to be my Maid of Honor?" Tsubaki asked quietly.

Maka fidgeted with the hem of her sleeve, the loose threads kept getting caught in her Timer.

She had spent most of the day flinching at every twinkling cell phone, every out of place musical note. She nearly screamed when an ice cream trunk jingled past her on her morning jog to work. She'd thrown up at least twice, and now she was just sick to death of the whole ordeal.

Her soul mate still hadn't shown his miserable face.

Maka had walked into Tsubaki's house to see her friend in full wedding attire, her half veil failing to obscure the hope in her eyes. Maka just brushed past her, and nearly ran into the biggest biker she had ever seen in her life.

She barely heard his profuse apologies as she checked her wrist, praying that it would stay silent. The biker introduced himself as Free, and stuck out his meaty hand for Maka to shake. She obliged, grateful that he did not comment on her shaking hand while he gripped it under his tattooed knuckles.

She avoided eye contact with any of the other people in Tsubaki's house as her friend led her to the bedroom, but it didn't keep her from watching the scene in the living room. Men, their skin permanently etched in ink, their hair outrageous, rainbow colors, hung garlands of white daisies.

She _really_ hoped it wasn't one of Black Star's friends.

Maybe it was someone she already knew? Maka went down the list of her single friends, single and without Timers.

Kid, the Thompson's foster brother? No, he made it clear he was on the same happy path of singledom as Patti. _And _he would want a second Timer on his non-dominant wrist, which was against the rules.

Maka wracked her brain for more people, physically tapping her fist against her forehead.

Nothing.

Maka groaned as she dumped her things on to Tsubaki's bed, throwing herself bodily after.

"I need more friends," she mumbled, her face crammed into a pillow.

The bed springs creaked as Tsubaki sat beside her, the crinoline of her dress brushed Maka's bare forearm. "I don't think that would help your situation," she said, smoothing the wrinkles in on her bodice. "That would just be more people for you to avoid."

Maka glared at her friend. "When did you get that dress?" she demanded.

Tsubaki flushed, her blue eyes sparkling with embarrassment. "Since my Timer activated," she mumbled.

"That is ridiculous."

"That's love, honey," Tsubaki grinned, smacking her friend on the back with a loud clap. "Get dressed."

Maka donned her long sleeved, pink silk dress as Tsubaki directed the decorating committee. When Maka questioned her friend about how the bride traditionally hid away from her groom in her wedding dress while other people took care of the details, Tsubaki said "I have to make sure these guys don't mess it up. Besides, Black Star isn't exactly the traditional type. And neither am I, really."

"Tsu, you are so the traditional type. You've hung the same Christmas ornaments every year since you were a baby."

Tsubaki sighed. "This _was _kind of last minute, so I'm making sure it's as perfect as possible. Black Star insisted his friends help, and who am I to refuse a sweet offer? I'm compromising. Soulmates, you know?"

No. Maka didn't know.

Maka picked harder at the sleeve of her dress. It was fraying at the edges, Maka noted grimly. She'd have to take it in somewhere, have it repaired somehow. She gingerly pulled a thread out and-

"No," Maka hissed. The stitch had pulled a two inch hole, right over her Timer.

Her mother's dress, forgotten at the dry cleaners the day she left, now had a hole. The pink silk dress her mother wore to Maka's first ballet recital, the dress from Christmas when she was eleven years old, the dress from Tsubaki's parents' fifteenth anniversary party. The dress that held memories, the lingering scent of her mother's perfume, and felt as soft as her mother's skin did, had a hole in it.

Maka gasped for air, her nose and eyes flooding. She stood shaking, staring at the hole.

There was a knock at the door, and a head of blue hair popped into the doorway. "Hey, you seen Tsu- Whoa. You looked bummed. You ok?" Black Star asked, pointing at Maka and squinting suspiciously.

Maka held up her wrist, feeling more like a child with a broken toy than an adult with a torn piece of clothing. "I ripped my mom's dress. It's the only thing I have of hers- she took everything when she left," she babbled.

"Is that all? Yo- come here." He walked into the room and pulled a little sewing kit out of his pocket. He'd have looked almost elegant in his suit jacket, if it weren't for his torn up Ramones shirt and equally mangled skinny jeans.

_I'm compromising_.

He held her wrist steady as he threaded a needle and slowly sewed the tear. Maka stood perfectly still, afraid for her wrist and terrified of her best friend's soulmate and husband-to-be.

Tsubaki had invited her to meet him, several times before. For Tsubaki's birthday, for Thanksgiving. Maka refused each time. It had only been a month since he and Tsubaki met. They were soulmates anyway, Maka had plenty of time to meet him, though, if she was honest, she had no idea what Tsubaki saw in him.

His tattoos peeked out from under the sleeves of his jacket, and he smelled of motor oil and AXE cologne. Maka had never actually spoken to him, but she was certain she did not need to. Maka recalled his performance, how clumsy he was. Sure, he had been drunk and nervous, but he was a mess, a bright blue disaster threatening Tsubaki's neat and peaceful life.

But the hand he used to sew her mother's dress was steady, secure, gentle.

Black Star tied a knot and nodded, seeming satisfied. "That'll hold for now. I got the number for a badass tailor- just let me know when you want it."

"How do _you_ know how to sew?" Maka asked, not bothering to hide her incredulousness.

"Punk doesn't give a fuck about your gender normity."

"...Seriously?"

Black Star shrugged, a small smile on his face. Maka suddenly saw why Tsubaki was so taken with him. "I'm always there for my followers; even if I have to sew shit every once in a while."

…._Followers?_

"A god's gotta do what a god's gotta do."

_What._

"I've even invited the lesser peons from my old band to the wedding today-"

Maka took everything positive back about him.

"-Hell, even settle down with the most glorious goddess the world has ever known."

Her head spun from the back and forth, from the douchebaggery to the odd sweetness.

Black Star stashed his sewing kit back in his pocket and said, "Heard from Tsu that you're going to meet your soulmate today. Nothing yet?"

Maka shook her head, not daring to speak.

Black Star patted her shoulder. "No problem, any of my friends would be kick ass soulmates for you." He paused, looking up thoughtfully. "Except my best man. The wimp's still hungover."

"How do you know?" asked Maka, wiping her eyes carefully with the back of her hand. "How do you know _I _would be a good soulmate for _them?_"

Black Star wrapped his arm around her shoulders and began pulling her out the door. "Tsu's told me about you, so I know. Trust your god."

Maka felt her heart turn into a puddle at the bottom of her ribcage, actively choosing to ignore his last comment. Tsu, her best friend, told this idiot that she was capable of being a good soulmate to someone. Or at least said enough positive things about her that warranted an almost-compliment from that odd, sweet, big-mouthed punk.

And Tsu, her best friend, was about to marry this odd, sweet, big-mouthed punk.

"Tsu could do worse," Maka blurted. "She could do worse than you."

Black Star snorted, and gave Maka a squeeze. "Yeah, well. I couldn't do better."

Guests started to file into the living room, sitting on the mismatched couches, lawn chairs, and plastic chairs. Maka spotted Tsubaki's conservative parents, looking, to Maka's surprise, amused at the colorful array of guests. Music swelled and guests quickly settled, gazing expectantly at the back of the room where Black Star and Maka stood.

Black Star let go of Maka at the edge of the makeshift aisle. He grinned at her, eyes bright under pierced eyebrows.

"That's my cue. Count to five, then follow me." He walked down the aisle backwards, casually holding his palms up, the guests slapping him five on his way to the white plastic garden arch.

"Maka," she heard Tsubaki hiss from behind her. "Here-" Tsubaki shoved a small bouquet of snowdrops into her hands. She gestured with her own bouquet- snowdrops, with peach blossoms- and said, "Go on."

Maka crept down the aisle, Black Star and Tsubaki's adoring family and friends watching her with serene smiles. She stumbled in her heels as her traitorous brain replaced the faces in the crowd with more familiar ones, the tattooed groom at the front replaced by a generic black suit and tie, a generic handsome face. It was unbearably familiar, a scenario played on television since she was a child. The happy beginning for a Timered couple. A beginning Maka had imagined for herself for years. It was finally coming true- for Tsubaki. She was happy for her friend, truly happy.

But she couldn't even imagine herself as a bride anymore.

Maka took her position, standing before the crowd, clutching her wilting flowers.

The music shifted, and Tsubaki walked down the aisle, her head held high, her eyes focused entirely on Black Star, who was bouncing on his heels.

Maka could at least pretend her tears were from joy.

Maka stirred her tea as the party raged on. Her shoes were long gone, having been discarded after her tenth dance with the Thompsons. She was pretty sure one of Black Star's friends had slipped them into the depths of their leather vest, but Maka was not about to complain.

The ceremony had been perfect, fit to the quick, odd, wonderful, upside down relationship Tsubaki and Black Star had. Black Star wrote his own vows, which were hilariously incomprehensible between his wheezing sobs and constant blows into his handkerchief. The minister, who received his certification twenty minutes before the ceremony, refused to removed his sunglasses the entire time. His friend- or girlfriend, Maka couldn't tell- kept violently motioning for him to remove his lenses; she could have caught fire from the friction from her squeaking leather jacket.

Tsubaki dipped her husband during their first kiss as a married couple, and the audience roared with approval.

Maka's tears turned to ones of mirth.

She sipped her tea, stifling her laughter as she watched Black Star attempt a left-footed tango with his new bride. Tsubaki was pink, bright and shining in the middle of her living room wedding. Her heels were abandoned, too, under some rickety rocking chair in the corner, after they kept getting snagged on the shag carpet.

When they were young and freshly Timered, Tsubaki would dream about her wedding day. She would spend a good chunk of her allowance on bridal magazines, and hide them at Maka's house, embarrassed that her parents would find them. She'd pour over them after finishing her homework, and spin Maka a tale about her wedding. She had favored a long train, silk, and a modest neckline. Tsubaki had wanted lilies and roses, because of their symbolism, and their class.

They had changed so much.

Black Star tried a complex breakdancing move and slipped, falling flat on his face at Tsubaki's feet. She doubled over in laughter, the drink in her hand tipping and sprinkling her husband in champagne. Black Star leapt to his feet, licked the drops from his face, and wrapped a hand around the back Tsubaki's neck, dragging her down to plant a big kiss on her lips. The wedding guests hooted and hollered, clinking their glasses and stomping their motorcycle boots.

Maka was on her second cup of tea when Tsubaki came up for air and flopped down on to an empty chair next to her.

"Whew," Tsubaki sighed. "What a night."

"Understatement of the fucking century," Maka said daintily.

"But you're enjoying yourself, right?" Tsubaki looked so earnest, like a tall, ridiculously beautiful puppy.

"It's different than I imagined it to be," Maka admitted. Across the room, a couple smashed a set of plates on the floor, and shouted "OPA!"

"Actually, with Black Star's friends, it's exactly how I thought it would be," Maka retracted with a wry smile.

"I couldn't have imagined anything like this," Tsubaki grinned back. "This is better."

"My _man_," Black Star crowed. He gesticulated wildly towards the front of the house, his enthusiasm leaking from his jumping feet.

She lifted her eyes to the man Black Star greeted. His garish orange shirt clashed horribly with his leather jacket, the sleeves of which were rolled up, revealing strong, tan forearms. He lugged six packs in both hands.

"Am I late for the party?" the man asked, settling the six packs on the floor and fist bumping Black Star, who then pulled the new man into what looked like a rather stifling bear hug.

Black Star let go and cackled, pointing at his friends face. "Sharpies, 5 billion. Soul, ZIP!"

The man pushed Black Star away, self consciously rubbing the side of his face. "Never drinking with you again," he mumbled.

Black Star clapped him on the shoulder. "Can't take the bachelor party heat, stay out of the titty bar."

The vague outline of a dick ran from the corner of his mouth to the lobe of his ear, the skin around it bright red, presumably from trying to scrub it off, or the beginnings of an adverse reaction to the permanent marker. And-

Red eyes.

Two jingles ran out, a lilting tune, and Maka's blood turned cold.

He had run his hand so many times through his white hair that it stood up in all directions. He kept his gaze locked on the toes of his motorcycle boots, as if she'd disappear if he didn't look at her for long enough. He hadn't glanced up once since Black Star had forced him into the chair next to her, previously occupied by Tsubaki, who had leapt over to engulf Soul in a hug that rivaled her husband's.

Soul stared at her over Tsubaki's shoulder, horror igniting his eyes. Maka could only stare back and try not to wheeze.

The newly wedded couple-turned-matchmakers abandoned them as soon as Soul's ass hit the plastic chair, leaving them in thick, cold fear.

_Soul._

His name was Soul. What kind of ass-backwards name was that? She had been searching for her soulmate for ten years, and the idiot was actually named _Soul_. And why was his hair white? Was it dyed, like Black Star's? Crap, did he have tattoos? He hadn't taken off his jacket yet, so he could have half-sleeves, a full-on back piece, and maybe even piercings! Maka wasn't sure she could handle that...

His eyes! They were such a weird color. Did he have contacts?

"Do you have contacts?" she burst out.

Soul blinked. "No."

Silence.

Their first exchange of words. _Romantic, _Maka thought bitterly. He was being so quiet! She hoped he wasn't going to be one of Black Star's monosyllabic friends, but there he was, grunting his responses like an albino cave man. It had to be some cosmic joke. She was a college professor, for crying out loud, there was no way her soulmate was going to be some lowlife biker dude.

She had been hoping for a Wes, not a Black Star.

"What's you name?" he asked gruffly, glancing up from his boots for the first time in five painfully awkward minutes.

"Maka," she replied, her arms tangling themselves across her chest.

"Oh."

Silence again.

She was going to lose her shit. "'Oh'? Is that is!?"

"What do you want me to say?" he asked, bewildered.

"I don't want to tell you what to say," she said stubbornly, tightening her arms around her chest. "Think of something."

He made a choking noise but stayed quiet otherwise.

Unbelievable. He didn't even try to make conversation with her. They were _soulmates._ This guy, whom she met all of 10 minutes ago, was her soulmate. She was going to spend the rest of her life with him. He was going to make her happy.

And his name was _actually_ _**Soul**__. _

She wanted to laugh and cry and punch a baby.

"Who are you?" There was no point in trying to be subtle. If it was a mistake, she wanted to know sooner rather than later.

Soul let out a short bark of laughter. "I don't even know."

His words were weighted, dripping with bitterness and remorse. Great. He had _baggage_. Maka so did not want a soulmate with baggage.

"Are you a friend of Tsu's?" he asked, changing the subject. He was evasive, too.

"Yes, we've been friends for a long time. Have you known Black Star for long?"

"I guess," he shrugged. "I'm probably the only one who can stand him for very long. Other than Tsu, I guess." A few more syllables, yes, they were finally getting somewhere.

But wait. _Tsu?_ He and Tsubaki were on a nickname basis?!

"How long have you known him?" Maka asked eagerly.

"Couple of months." He ran his hand through his hair again, digging his nails into his scalp. He blinked through a grimace; was he trying to pull his hair out, bring himself back to reality? Maka knew the feeling. Her own clipped manicure was going to leave little half moons up and down her arms.

"Months?" Maka asked incredulously. "And he asked you to be his best man?"

"It's Black Star," he raised and dropped a single shoulder. Enough said, really, but he continued. "I answered an ad. We were roommates for a couple of weeks, when I first moved out here, but our landlord kept getting pissed about Black Star jumping into the pool from the second story and kicked us out. We had to split."

Maka snorted. "I don't even know Black Star, and that sounds like something he would do."

Soul gave her a small smile, and hesitated before asking, "What made you get a Timer?"

Ah. It was Maka's turn to shrug. "Everyone had one. Tsubaki and I got ours at the same time. They were blank for the longest time, and we decided to have them removed. But hers lit up like a Christmas tree right before our appointments."

"Must have sucked."

Maka traced the plastic outline of her Timer, her cause for chaos for so long. "It did. I was looking for a guarantee. Now I'm not so sure."

Sou's smile melted off his face as he ducked his head, hiding his face under his bangs.

"I mean there are no guarantees, right?" she pressed.

"There is with a Timer," he said flatly. He put his head in his hands and rubbed roughly, making him look like he'd just been electrocuted. "We're stuck. I didn't even want a Timer. Fuck. "

What an asshole. He didn't want to find her? Fine.

"Didn't think a biker could be so sentimental," she sneered.

"Didn't think a skinny, short girl could even have fat ankles," he sniped.

She reached blindly for a blunt object and hurled it at him. It smacked him in the middle of the face and he reeled back. He hissed in a breath and held his nose while the object clattered off the table and on to the floor.

_A spoon, _Maka mused. _More aerodynamic than a book._

"If you weren't interested in finding a soulmate then why did you even get it?" she snapped.

"Oh," he rubbed his nose sheepishly. "I got it when I was drunk."

Maka blanched. "How do you make an important life decision like that _while inebriated?"_

Soul rolled his eyes. "Black Star got it, and he met Tsubaki, like, a month later."

"It was two months," Maka corrected.

"Whatever. We went out for his Bachelor's party-"

"Gross."

"Lemme guess: You're the one at Tsubaki's Bachelorette party that hid in the bathroom for three hours, and then tried to stab herself?"

"…"

"Thought so. Anyway, after a fuck-load of drinks, he bet me I didn't have the balls to get one. Had to rise up to the challenge, yanno?"

"No," Maka deadpanned. "What did you think when it lit up with the time?"

Soul shrugged. "I sobered up pretty quick after that. Almost had it removed."

"Why didn't you?" she asked acidly. "It might have saved us both the trouble."

"And miss the opportunity to drive you up the wall?" he smirked. "No chance."

She wanted to come up with a brilliant response, something witty and memorable, but his crooked smile drove up her temperature and tangled her tongue.

He was hot? When he smiled? He was so surly the whole time, his face contorted with desperation, his odd hair and eyes, it was hard to think of him as handsome.

But his _smile_.

The smile drove up one cheek, deepened a dimple smack dab in the middle, and his teeth were… intriguing. The were super white, almost like they were artificially bleached, all ending in small points. They grazed the skin of his lips as his smile stretched.

Maka clenched her knees together.

He watched her struggle, with a growing grin that crinkled the edges of his eyes, and decided to put her out of her misery. "How about you? How long did you have a blank timer?"

Maka stiffened, but could not prevent the burning blush from invading her face.

"Ten years," she mumbled.

Soul blinked rapidly. "Holy shit, that's a long time. You got it as soon as you could, eh? That eager for the end of your life?"

Maka's eyebrows furrowed. "The end?"

"Ball and chain, and all that."

"This doesn't have to be permanent, you know," she bristled. "We can choose not to see each other again."

"You don't believe in destiny?"

"I believe in self-fulfilling prophecies," she said. "And the ability to choose my own destiny. This is one we don't have to fulfill."

She stood.

Soul stared at her from under his pale bangs, his face blank.

Cold realization swept over Maka, a silky blanket of relief. They were total strangers, they didn't know anything about each other. They were supposed to be soulmates? No, impossible. Not one of Black Star's friends, not this weird looking probably-not-but-could-be-albino. Maka had been fine on her own for the last decade, she would be fine for however long she had until she met someone she could chose for herself. Someone more like her. Or maybe no one at all.

"It was nice meeting you," Maka continued, toeing the carpet under her foot. "But I'm not fourteen anymore. And I'm not looking for a soulmate. Tell Tsubaki and Black Star congratulations for me."

She turned on her low heel and left Soul at the table. Maka felt his eyes on her back as she darted out of the door and into the night.

She would have her Timer removed, burned and buried, along with the night itself. She vowed to burn her dress, her shoes, the flowers she choked in her hand. Maka would forget that ever happened, go back to work, go back to her life.

It would be quiet, it would be peaceful.

Her life would be hers and hers alone.

Maka finished out the semester as "The Professor Who Had A Blank Timer Then Didn't But Turned Him Away."

The GPA of the entire class dropped half a point.

Maka nearly broke her favorite pencil when the department head called her into the main office to yell at her. She bore it as best she could, distracted, as usual, by the hearts dancing across the face of her Timer every hour. They sent her out when her subtle scratching turned not-so-subtle clawing, her wrist red and raw, the punctures holding her timer in place oozing blood.

She managed to get home in a haze, tripping over her boot laces. She landed on the living room couch, her backpack still looped around her shoulders. She lay there, like a turtle, until the sun dipped under the window sills.

So this was her, post Timer. She had expected to feel relief, joy, or incredible sadness. But all she felt was an emptiness in her chest, a gaping hole that refused to fill, even when she tried to stuff it shut with food, office supplies, and books.

Maka couldn't get him out of her head.

It had been at least two months since they first made eye contact. Two months of Tsubaki calling her cell phone and leaving messages dripping with disappointment, telling her about Soul's whereabouts, his interests, and how much he probably wanted to see her.

Maka doubted Tsubaki actually spoke to him, because all of that information took too many syllables for Soul produce.

Maka shut her eyes, squeezing out the dark of the living room.

He wasn't even there and she was being rude to him. To her soulmate.

Maka wriggled uncomfortably. She tried hard not to think of that night, the panic flooding her bloodstream.

She had met her soulmate and immediately shut him down. They barely managed a conversation before she bolted. She never found out his last name. Or what he did for a living. Or anything beside his slow reflexes.

Maka let out a snort of laughter, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes. She watched green and red splotches dance behind her eyelids, like a moving Rorschach test. The splotches began to look suspiciously like a laughing couple.

She groaned and rolled over, landing on her elbows and knees in between the couch and the coffee table.

"Hey, sweetheart."

"Hi, Papa." she mumbled, her face smushed into the carpet.

"You look a little down."

"Funny," Maka said, lifting her head. Her father stood over her, grinning at her, still in his suit and tie from work. Spirit worked for disgraced, former politician Lloyd Mort, who traveled around the world talking up Timers and their success, using his own romance with Arachne as an example.

It really wasn't the best example, but the media ate it up, and it was Spirit's job to make sure the story circulated among the females aged 18-35 demographic. And he did his job well.

Perhaps too well, Maka always speculated.

"Come on," he said, sitting on the couch and patting the space next to him. "Tell Papa what's going on."

She muttered something about not needing to, about not needing her papa, but he ignored her damn lie and hoisted her up by the backpack and plopped her down next to him. As much as Maka resented being treated like a kitten, she had to admit she hadn't been acting like someone full grown recently.

She also hated that she inherited her mother's height, or lack thereof.

On the couch, she curled up into herself, her mouth pressed firmly into her knee.

A hesitant hand landed on her shoulder. "D-don't eat your knee."

"Papa," Maka sat up. "I met my soulmate."

Papa's hand tightened. "What."

"I met him and it was so screwed up," Maka sniffled, and felt her lungs start collapse.

"What did he do? Where can I find him?" Spirit demanded. "Mort knows some people-"

"It wasn't him, he was nice. I think he was nice- I didn't really even give him a chance," Maka began to cry in earnest. "I don't know if my soulmate is nice!"

Maka bent over her knees again, sobs ripped their way out of her body. She was so stupid. She didn't give Soul a chance. He seemed normal, sane.

She didn't bother getting to know him before she shut him out.

Why was she so scared?

"I ruined it," she said, lifting her head, mystified at her own foolishness.

"You can't ruin something that never really started, sweetheart."

"We met, Papa. That was supposed to be the beginning, the happily ever after. And I lost it."

Spirit shook his head. "That's not how life works. Timer or no, people always have a choice." He paused, seeming to steel himself before he continued. "I had a choice. I could have stayed with your mama, been faithful."

Maka's spine straightened as she listened. Papa never willingly spoke to her about what happened between him and her mother.

"She had a choice, too. She made hers when she came home with a Timer. She decided what would make her the happiest. And, Maka," he said. "You have to choose."

Maka had grown comfortable being stuck in limbo, wandering and flopping back and forth without making any decisions. Now, there was a path lying plain before her and she refused to go down it.

"But I'll never see him again," Maka insisted. "I don't know where he lives. I don't know anything about him. "

"You're a smart girl, sweetheart," Spirit said, his grin returning. "Just don't hurt the boy. Or do. I'd prefer that you do. And call me if you need help."

"Papa, I'm not going to let you hurt my soulmate."

"Your choice, entirely your choice."

The Spring semester began with Maka enduring her punishment for failing nearly her entire class: two thirds of the course load she was usually allotted. It meant less experience, less research funds, and less _money on her paycheck._

She ran her way to her two-thirds job, her feet pounding the asphalt rhythmically. Maka's mother used to say that she could set her watch to Maka's running, her steady pace more reliable than ticking clock. Her mother would reward her each time she broke a personal record, usually a book or a trip to the library, just the two of them.

Maka's pace slowed as she thought about her bills, and how many fewer books she would be able to buy in the next few months. She could always ask her papa for help, but he was on a twisted kind of tirade, going back and forth between wanting to help her find Soul and offering to pay her tuition to a local all-women's college to "ease her financial strain."

When Maka finally settled at her desk, she shuffled through her hastily written syllabi. She was sure that she had packed the right one, but as she dug through her backpack, she began to panic. Students started to traipse in with their corporate label coffee cups and yoga mats. Maka stared determinedly at her things, focused entirely on locating the syllabus. She would not start the semester as "The Professor Who Rejected Her Soulmate But Then Regretted it And Also Lost The Class Syllabus."

In her peripheral vision, Maka could see a black and white blob sit right in front of her. He was hunched over, and appeared to be stifling his laughter. Maka's face and neck felt hot as his snickering reached her ears, but refused to look up, not even to glare at the asshole.

Who did he think he was? Didn't he know that she had complete control over his grade? Ok, that power was why she was teaching introductory level psychology instead of upper division like the previous semester, but she still had it! Maka grit her teeth and she yanked stack after stack of papers out of her backpack, swearing that she'd buy a proper briefcase and develop a better organizational system if only she survived the following hour and a half of class.

"They're under your desk," an all too familiar voice said helpfully.

She'd memorized it in their brief interaction, recorded his tone and timbre in her mind, it resonated in her chest, deep and whole. It made her ears ring and the skin around her Timer throb.

Though that might have been her accelerating heart.

Maka let the papers in her hands slide to the floor. "Fucking shit," she breathed.

"Woah, Professor Albarn, I'm not sure that's appropriate language for the classroom," Soul said with a crooked grin that made Maka's face turn molten.

"What are you doing here?!"

He gestured to his notebook and shook his head in mock disappointment. "You can't recognize a student when you see one? What kind of professor are you?"

"D-did you know?"

"That this was Psych 101? Yeah, that's what my schedule says."

"No, idiot," Maka snapped. "Did you know I was the professor?" He had to have known. Clearly, he orchestrated the whole thing. There was no way it was a coincidence…

"Nope," he said as his smirk grew more pronounced and looked, to Maka's increasing agitation, rather pleased. "It's destiny."

Maka screeched and chucked her backpack at his head.

After being pulled off of Soul by his fellow students, Maka was back in the Department Head's office. She sat sullenly, Soul tapping his toes to an silent beat in the seat next to her.

"Tsu said you were feisty," Soul said casually, weaving his hands behind his head. "But she didn't say you were violent."

"Don't call me feisty," Maka said, resting her head in her hands. She could count on her hand the number of times she had been to the Department head's office, most of them having occurred after her Timer lit up. True love was making her become a delinquent.

"Alright, no calling you feisty. We're getting to know each other so well."

Maka groaned loudly as the office door swung open. A tall woman sashayed in, wearing heels higher than Maka ever thought safe, her black hair shining purple in the light.

"Kitten, you're back again?" she asked, settling in to her desk.

"Don't call me kitten," Maka said, her face still buried in her hands.

"Right," the woman said enthusiastically. "No affectionate nicknames for Professor Albarn, Professional only." She turned to Soul, her smile bright and warm. "My name is Catherine Blair, I'm Head of the Psychology department." She leaned over her desk and stuck her hand out for Soul to shake, the motion pushing her breasts higher.

Maka watched Soul out of the corner of her eye. He kept his gaze on their joined hands as they exchanged greetings, and folded his hands over his chest as he leaned back in his chair.

Hm…

"According to the eyewitness reports, you tried to claw a student's eyes out?"

"Actually, she tried to strangle me, then decapitate me with a textbook," interrupted Soul.

"Oh, my," Blair said, and turned to Maka. "That doesn't sound professional at all, Kitten."

"Don't call me that. And I didn't try to decapitate him. I just wanted… to maim him."

"Maim him," Blair repeated. "Why did you try to maim Mr...?"

"Evans," Soul replied. "Soul Evans."

Maka perked up. "That's your last name?"

Soul cast her a peculiar look while she tried not to tangle his last name with her first. "Yeah?"

"Evans…" she repeated, blankly. She wanted to laugh, and cry, then maybe scream. Of course they had to be related. The hair, the shape of their eyes. Hell, even the bridge of their noses were the same width.

But there was no way. It was too much of a coincidence.

She was half-tempted to punch Fate in the face instead of Soul.

"Are you related to Wes Evans?" Maka asked eagerly.

"Yeah." he replied irritably. "He's my brother. You want an autograph or something?"

What monster in the seventh ring of hell thought to put her in this situation?

One of her best friend's husband's brother was her soulmate.

The brother of a man she had known for more than ten years was her soulmate.

How had she never met him before? For years, he had been a phone call away. How many times had Liz offered to give her Wes's brother's number?

It was completely ridiculous.

So Maka laughed.

She laughed and laughed, and laughed until tears streamed down her face.

Her laughter deteriorated into giggles, and Soul seemed alarmed, but relieved that she wasn't going to try and kill him again.

"You… done?" Soul asked hesitantly.

"My friend Liz is _married _to him," Maka said.

Soul's strong jaw (she wished she would stop noticing that) dropped. It was not an unattractive expression on him.

"Shit."

"Yeah," Maka agreed with a short laugh. "Now I know why Liz has been blowing up my phone. After what happened, there was no way I going to answer."

Soul blew a raspberry. "I've been ignoring her, too. Figured Wes told her what happened, but I wasn't about to lose my hearing."

"Her squeals _are_ abnormally high-pitched," Maka agreed.

Soul laughed, loud and true, his head thrown back and his shark teeth exposed.

Maka bit her lip and stared at him, watching his face turn bright under her gaze, the color of his weird, beautiful eyes. They were so warm; she wished she had something to compare them to, but she could only feel them on her as she tried to keep breathing.

"Maka, we do need to discuss why you're in my office," interrupted Blair. "Your various outbursts recently have brought your competence into questions."

Maka sobered immediately. "He can't be in my class."

"Why not?"

"It's a conflict of interest."

"How so?"

Maka's words died in her mouth. She didn't want to admit it in front of Soul, which was stupid because obviously he knew he was her soulmate.

There was just something about saying it out loud, in front of him, in front of her boss, of all people, that made it seem more real. Actualized. Concrete.

Soul seemed amused by her silence.

"Go on, Professor," he goaded. "Tell her why I can't be in your class."

"Because- we're- I mean we're _not _but-"

"Eh, what was that?" Soul was having way too much fun; Maka's fingers itched for her textbook.

Blair tapped her long purple nails on her desk. "If this is some of sort of lovers' quarrel-"

Soul began. "Well-"

"N-not at all," Maka stammered. "I would never do something so unprofessional-"

"Except try to beat up one of your innocent students on the first day of class?" piped Soul.

"You are _not _a student."

Soul shot her an incredulous look.

"I don't even know what the hell to do about you," he said.

"W-what-"

Soul ignored Maka, and shoved a square sheet of paper towards Blair. She lowered her purple reading glasses from the top of her head and quickly scanned the paper. With a quiet click of her tongue she wheeled herself to face her computer screen, nails clacking against the keys as she typed at lightning speed.

"What did you give her?" demanded Maka.

"Student number," he grunted back, staring determinedly at Blair.

"Yes, it is. For Soul Evans, music major." Blair clicked her tongue again. "Way behind on his general education units."

Soul slumped down in his seat, crossing his arms over his chest. "I'm a music major," he mumbled petulantly. "General Ed is for chumps."

"'Chumps,'" Maka echoed. "Are you a twelve year old?"

"Nah, but _you _look like one."

"Ok, ok, stop." Blair blew the bangs out of her face. "I'm transferring Soul to a different class. On one condition."

"Which is?" Maka asked, narrowing her eyes suspiciously.

"That you go on one date."

Maka balked. "Not gonna happen."

Soul just sank deeper into his chair, until the middle of his back brushed the seat.

"Maka, the department has watched you grow from a freshman, whining about the lack of representation in Psychology textbooks, to a brilliant- if erratic- professor. You are valuable to us, Kitten. More than that, you have a long career ahead of you. I would hate to see this-" Blair jerked her head towards Soul, "-stop you."

"Hey," said Soul, offended.

"And you," Blair said, turning to him. "I can see your academic history all over my computer. All ten pages of it."

Soul pursed his lips, stifling the indignant noise he had been about to make."

"Stay out of trouble. Get your units. Graduate."

"Fine," Soul ground out. "Can we go?"

"You may," Blair replied sweetly. "Maka stays."

Soul looked pointedly at Maka.

What did he want her to say? That she wanted him to stay because she was terrified that the next words that would come out of Blair's mouth were going to be "and also you're fired?" That her main source of comfort and guidance left her for a stranger and now she had nothing but a gaping hole in her chest? That she was desperately clinging to any source of sanity by her fingertips?

Did he want her to say that she needed him to be with her right at that moment?

Because she really wanted to say all that.

Instead, she said, "I'm ok.."

Soul didn't seem to believe her, but he shrugged and stepped out, glaring the whole time.

Blair watched him walk out with a lecherous grin, her professional front plummeting to the hardwood floor as soon as Soul's back was turned. She pounced on Maka in a second.

"Lucky girl! I told you it would be worth the wait. He's so handsome I could eat him up. Don't mind sharing do you?"

"You can have him," Maka mumbled.

"Aw, disappointed with true love?" Blair tilted her head sympathetically. "That's ok, Kitten. Do what I did after I met my soulmate, and go have your fun for a while! If he's your true love, he'll be waiting for you when you get back."

"I don't know if he's my true love. Uh, I mean he is but he's not- not yet. I don't want to do that to him."

"Soooo," Blair mused. "What are you pussyfooting around for? He's waiting for you. Literally, outside of the door."

"... No, he's not." He couldn't be. They met only a few months ago, and hadn't seen each other at all since. And she clocked him in the face with a book not two hours ago. Why would he wait for _her_? "Why would he wait for me?"

"Because he accepts his destiny. Embraces it," she said. "Unlike you."

Maka dropped her head to her knees, trying to keep the room from spinning. "Why is this so hard?"

Blair rolled her eyes and pulled out a nail file from the depths of her desk. "Because you're stubborn," she said in a bored voice as she dragged the file across the tip of her nails. "Resistant to change and afraid of things you cannot control."

"He's going to hate me. Or worse, he's going to _like_ me."

"Nuh-uh, no," Blair scolded, waggling a glittery, purple fingernail. "Shut that doubty brain down. I know you've been running in circles for months, your daddy told me."

"How-? You know what, don't tell me." Maka smoothed her pigtails. "I… have to talk to him."

"That's an excellent start," Blair nodded approvingly. "This is so exciting. You'll finally have a boy, and get laid!"

"Ughhhh, I just met him! Can't I ask what he does for a living first, or something?"

"Sure, that's one approach."

"Ok," Maka said finally. "I can talk to him. Get to know him. I'll be ok. It's not forever-"

"-Technically it _is_ forever-"

"I can leave at any time."

"Maka, it's a date, not a gynecologist appointment. And you may not be sure, but he is." Blair sighed. "The way he looks at you already. Makes a girl feel all drippy."

"Can we go back to being colleagues now? You know, professional?"

Maka shut the door to Blair's office and immediately pressed her back to it, ready to keep Blair from opening it and trying to talk to her about how "first date sex is totally acceptable because _soulmates._"

Maka rubbed her temples with her fingertips as she sank to the floor.

As much as she was sick of the indecision wrecking her brain, her concentration, and her life in general, she had to admit it, at least to herself.

She was scared.

It seemed like a dream before her Timer had activated; she would have someone to spend the rest of her life with, no questions, no problems. But it wasn't like in the commercials. It wasn't neat or tidy, and there were certainly no smiling faces.

Maka almost wished her Timer would go blank again.

"'Sup?"

Maka banged her head against the wooden door as her body jerked in shock.

"Why do you keep doing that?!" she gasped, clutching her heart.

Soul laughed, but quickly coughed to cover it up as Maka glared up at him. "Sorry. Didn't mean to scare you." He crouched in front of her, unsuccessfully stifling a smile. He met her eyes, and Maka felt her body heat up from her spine.

He had dimples.

"What do you want?" she asked brusquely. "Are you going to see Blair again?"

It would be so typical of him. Most of the complaints about Maka stemmed from men, who had met Blair and were dying to meet her again, and made up some excuse or other to see the Department Head again.

"No, I was waiting." He turned serious, a little furrow forming between his eyebrows. Adorably so. He looked so concerned. Damn him. "Did you get fired? Because I can go in and explain what happened."

Maka wanted to squeeze his face, either out of her face or a little bit closer. She had been nothing but rude to him, but there he was. Soul was waiting for her, worried about her.

"What would you say?" she asked curiously.

"I'm not actually sure." He scratched the back of his head sheepishly. "I thought I'd say I was stalking you and you were defending yourself."

"That's a terrible plan," Maka scoffed. "Blair would have called the cops. And maybe impaled you with her nails."

"Well. I'm glad I didn't do that then." Soul stood and brushed the dust off of his pants. "Wanna go celebrate you not getting fired?"

"What?"

Soul's hands were apparently on autopilot, still brushing invisible dirt from his pants. To Maka's delight, there was faint pink creeping along his cheekbones.

"Just for food. You eat, right?"

"I do," Maka admitted.

"So, let's go." Soul reached his hand down to her. She glanced up at him as he refused to look back at her, the top half of his face hidden by long bangs.

He was so… cute.

"Ok."

She was almost giddy.

He felt as awkward as she did.

Maka's glee refused to fade as they walked across campus to "the best pizza place ever" according to Soul himself. The night was thankfully warm; Maka feared that if it were too cool, she would have had to do something weird, like ask for his jacket. Or was he the type to offer it up? Were they familiar enough with each other to do that? Maka couldn't remember the last time she borrowed a jacket from a boy. Was it high school? What was the protocol? Was it different now that they were adults?

It didn't feel different.

Save for the fact that she knew they were soulmates, destined to fall in love.

_But absolutely no pressure_, she thought irritably.

Soul opened the door for her when they arrived to a dimly lit Italian restaurant, Death's Kiss's sign shined red neon. He led her to a tiny booth at the very back of the restaurant and squished himself as close to the wall as he could.

"I usually eat here alone," he shrugged. Maka slipped in next to him, trying to give him space but finding it impossible on the small square booth seat. She was hanging half off, her fingertips digging into the table for stability.

"Don't make it weirder, Maka. Just sit."

She scooted closer to Soul, until the side of their hips were flush against each other's. Warmth surged in her face and she was gratified to see that his face was approaching nuclear as well.

"So, you come here often?" She felt like a total dud.

"Not really. They just know me."

"Can you be more vague?"

"If I try," he mumbled.

A waiter swept in and placed a couple cups of coffee in front of them, and another waiter loaded their table with tray after tray of food, steaming and delicious. Three different pizzas, piled high with meat and veggies, stromboli with layers of melting cheese and broccoli, and a small bowl of salad.

"Where's all this coming from? We haven't even ordered yet."

"This is my regular order. I come in, they bring it," he shrugged, pulling a slice of pizza off of a tray.

"Are you in the mafia?"

"What? Where do you even get those ideas, jeez. I just… eat a lot," he emphasized _a lot_ with a huge bite of pizza, his teeth ripping through the thick layer of toppings with ease.

"And you _don't really come here often?_"

"I don't," Soul said around a mouthful of dough, meat, and cheese. He swallowed and said, "My family kind of… owns the chain."

Maka choked on her bite of stromboli.

Soul patted her on the back as she coughed, and explained. "It's my parents' side venture. They're more into music, but Italians, you know?"

"No, I don't know. But wait a second," she pouted. "All this time I could've had access to free pizza? You should've gotten a Timer sooner."

Soul sputtered and for a moment Maka thought she had made a colossal mistake; was it too soon to make that joke? Why was there no 'So You've Met Your Soulmate: How Not to Make a Total Ass of Yourself.'

But he laughed and and bit another chunk off his third slice of pizza. "You can blame Black Star for that. If he gotten his a long time ago, he would've gotten me drunk at his bachelor's party sooner and I would've been bullied into an implantation chair then."

Maka tilted her head thoughtfully. "I wonder if that would have changed where and when we met?"

"Way too philosophical for me," Soul groaned. "I just ate my weight in dough and cheese."

Maka snorted. "I do have a serious question though."

Soul shifted his body so he was facing her, and she mirrored him. He leaned towards her, very serious, and Maka wondered what he could possibly be thinking. She took in his white bangs, his red eyes and furrowed white eyebrows, and she had to ask.

"What's with the salad?" she asked, stabbing her fork at the pile of lettuce and slivered carrots.

Soul shrugged, his mouth crammed with food again. "Gotta have some veggies, or the kitchen guys call my mom."

Oh, now _that _was interesting. "Afraid of the Wrath of Mom, huh?"

"Something like that."

"No, but seriously, what would she do?" Maka pressed, fascinated.

"Why are you so curious?" Soul asked with a barked laugh. "Got a mom kink? I don't know if I could be into that."

"Moms are kind of a foreign concept to me," Maka smiled sadly, shrugging.

"Oh," Soul said, his mouth twisted (she was paying too much attention to his mouth, she needed to stop) in concern. "Want to talk about it?"

Maka felt the weight she usually associated with thoughts of her mother in the back of her head, but it was lightened.

She wrinkled her nose and shook her head.

Soul nodded. "Okay," he said, and dove back into the food on the table.

Maka leaned back in her seat, openly watching him. He didn't seem to mind, but his eating picked up pace. Tsubaki and Liz would have nagged and nagged, tugged on her sleeve for more information. But this man, who she barely knew, who barely knew her, left her to her thoughts, because she asked him to. How many other people would press and ask questions, herself included?

A waiter a red visor pushed a trolley full of cakes, pastries, and ice cream to their table. "Dessert?"

"Yeah," grunted Soul. "Leave the cart."

"Yessir," the waiter simpered, and left the cart laden with sweets beside them.

"Which do you want?" Soul asked, perusing the options. "Do you have a favorite? One of the guys back there makes a wicked red velvet cake. It's dyed red with beets, which sounds nasty, right, but it's actually really good."

"Who _are _you?" Maka asked incredulously. "And how can you eat so much?"

Soul snickered at Maka's stricken face. "Soul Evans: Genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist- ow!" He rubbed his arm where Maka punched him. "No movie references, gotcha. Soul Evans," he said. He nudged her with his elbow before mumbling, "Your soulmate."

They walked mostly in silence, occasionally commenting on the weather or a passing car. They had shoving contests every few stop signs, which ended up with Maka forcing her entire weight on Soul, trying to push him into the street.

He walked with her until they were half a block from her home. She thought it was because, as she had explained blushingly to him during the trek, her father would be in and she did not want to deal with _that_ introduction just yet. But as they walked past a line of elegant houses, with tall gates and acres of pristine grass, Soul wavered in front of a long drive way.

"My house is just on the next block…" Maka trailed off as Soul tugged out a key.

"I... kind of live... here," Soul said, twisting the key in his hand.

"Oh," Maka said, surprised. She gestured to the expansive home before them. "So this is what owning a restaurant chain earns you? I definitely went into the wrong business." She added a half-hearted laugh. If she counted, her house was probably two-hundred fifty steps away, across the street and down three houses.

"We're neighbors," Soul said, flatly.

"Nearly," Maka deadpanned.

They stood in silence as they both contemplated their situation. They were soulmates, destined to fall in love. They hardly knew anything about each other, yet they were practically neighbors.

"This is so weird," Maka said, her voice taut.

"Absolutely," Soul agreed.

"But it's not… bad," she admitted.

Soul's mouth quirked up, the dimple in his cheek making another appearance. "No," he replied, reaching out to take her hand. "Not bad."

His hand is warm around hers, a perfect fit, and Maka didn't try to speak or explain, didn't bother withdrawing her palm. She let the moment rest, let it fill her up.

Soul stared down at their joined hands. "Sorry I made you wait," he mumbled. "Ten years is a long time."

Maka felt a smile creep up her face, bittersweet, and she squeezed his hand. "You're here now."

"And I'm here to stay," he said, his red eyes piercing her. "If you want."

Why did his words feel like some sort of proposal? Maybe because it was, sort of. They were soulmates, sure, but accepting it, accepting each other, was on a whole other level.

Ten years was a long time. The rest of their lives would be a long time, too.

"Yeah," Maka replied, mouth dry. "I want."

Soul flashed her a smile, bright and brilliant. "Alright," he said, bouncing on his heels. He looked like an oversized, over-excited puppy in a leather jacket. "I'll call you tomorrow?"

They exchanged numbers quickly, their faces red and their hands shaking, like preteens with their first crush. He waved to her sheepishly as she walked away towards her house, away from him for the night, for only a few hours.

For the first time for as long as she could remember, she was looking forward to the rest of her life.


End file.
